Back from a trip to nostalgia

Gauva tree near Grandma's place, close to this tree, and a butterfly fluttering by.

When you have made lots of friends and you plan on making a disappearing act, you should leave a word lest they worry about you. And while i have done the disappearing act a few times now since starting the blog less than a year ago, i seem to have still not learnt the 'leaving a word' part. I had gone off to my parents place again last week and spent nearly a whole week eating, shopping, and visiting relatives; and despite my best intentions, i simply had no time to come back here and say hello.And i have other excuses too, like my camera battery charger going kaput and such other lame ones. So anyway when i saw a mail from a blogger friend today enquiring if all was OK, i was guilty and ready to post something even if it was nothing interesting and no recipe.

And while my only intention was to do a quick post, as soon as i logged into blogger, i started opening links of recent blog posts that i missed and that seemed too good to ignore. I was sufficiently distracted and started to feel guilty again that this post has nothing to offer, that i am talking without having anything to say. So i won't mind if you too have nothing to say about it. Hope you have been well.

This is the tree that bore these fruits

Easy Home-made Frech Fries

I have been cooking so much lately, i have had no time to talk about it. And these french fries have been featuring prominently as evening snacks most days of the week, ever since i discovered them about two months ago. I saw them featured on The Pioneer Woman and they looked delicious. Not its easy to say no to fried potato whether they are really in front of you or just virtually in pics. But then i am also one for shortcuts. I usually don't have the patience for pre-planning. So while the source recipe tells you to soak the potato cut into fries for at least an hour and then fry them twice once in hot oil and next in very hot oil, that sounded too long winded and cumbersome to me. And it asked for a thermometer to measure the temperature of oil. There i gave up. But i didn't give up entirely.

Purple Grape Jam with White Bread Loaf

I had been eyeing this jam for a couple of months now and i had been sceptical of baking bread for even longer. Then i saw my friend bake bagels from scratch and knew it was time for me to draw some inspiration. I had been telling her that i would bake a bread from her blog because she was doing it all too easily and all too frequently.  I may have been postponing it because nobody was asking me to do these. If i did make both bread and jam from scratch, it would be solely for me. The husband won't touch bread especially when it has jam in it (will eat Subway breads only!). And is not much of a breakfast person either. I decided i should do it for my own satisfaction. Boy was i happy. I finished making jam at 5 in the evening, then made these for the husband to snack on and finally pushed my bread into the oven. Fresh bread came out at 8 pm. And i didn't have the patience to wait till breakfast to try these out. So my dinner came in the form of purple jam lathered over freshly baked and sliced bread. I have no complaints. Making something from scratch going slightly out of your comfort zone gives tremendous satisfaction. And for me, i have not done anything so elaborate just myself after getting married. Usually when the husband is out and i have to cook only for myself, i have only ever made Maggi noodles or eaten left over rice from the morning or convinced him to bring me takeaway. So to go out to such lengths to prepare something only for myself wasn't bad at all. I should try it again sometime.

Eggless Fresh Mint Ice Cream (Philadelphia style)

When looking up recipes for mint ice cream i gained enlightenment (or just information?) about naming of ice creams. And like i said before, when i learn something new i am compelled to tell you about it. Now if you 've tried making ice cream at home from scratch, you know that you can either make them with or without eggs. Ice creams made with eggs are cooked into a custard base and are supposedly richer and creamier than their egg less counterparts. Now did you know that the richer style of ice cream with eggs is called French style ice cream and the egg less version is called American or Philadelphia style ice cream? There, that's my revelation for today that i 've been bursting to tell you. When i write it down, it doesn't sound that great. I guess my surprise was that Americans are credited for creating a low fat ice cream and the French for the high fat ones but people of the two counties don't seem to bear testimony for that. Or maybe the quantity of ice cream consumed makes all the difference. Or my sample size is too small. I will leave it to you to decide.

Multi colour pasta in alfredo sauce

I stopped making pizza at home for almost a month now. Not because i was bored, but because the man in the house thought i was making pizza too healthy and the flavour was supposedly turning Indian instead of Italian. (In his defence, for my latest attempt i had replaced half the all purpose flour for the pizza base with whole wheat flour and added an extra teaspoon of ragi flour. I loved the crust that day.) Now shouldn't he have been thanking me for taking care of his cholesterol. Instead he said "Look, why don't we just eat out whenever we feel the craving for pizza". Needless to say i was shocked and mad. Because, he is the health nut in our relationship, but turns out he wants his pizza in the most unhealthy way. Most friends i have talked to preferred pizza making at home so they could control the amount of cheese they put into it. My man prefers (or used to prefer) home-made pizza for the exact same reason, only he wants more cheese than a double cheese pizza at Pizza Hut. What do i do? Simply switch to my other Italian favourite - Pasta.