Busy Busy Week

Its Thursday night. Cant believe how the week got almost over. Especially this one was extremely busy , exhausting but a little different. I drove almost 200 miles in 4 days of the week so far. Thats a lot considering it was a working week, not a vacation week :-) and i live a meagre 4 miles from work. Tuesday morning I had to drive to SF for my passport renewal , yesterday for a doc appt, today for a guitar lesson. Now i dont want to drive anymore. There was a time when i used to consider anything under 20 miles as near, no big deal category. Now 20 miles is too much :-). Maybe i am trying to do too many things in too less of a time. These days when i am on the road, i want to drive fast and get to my destination in the least possible time. Earlier i used to drive enjoying and not worrying too much about getting there soon. Maybe all i need is a break from it so that i can start enjoying it again...Or maybe i am falling into that spell, where everyone is always in a hurry, always obsessed with something going on in the mind, always trying to get something done, never leaving the mind blank and pure to enjoy the present, always running a marathon towards the future but the present slipping out of the hands every second. Too philosophical huh? Well test yourself against this statement, are you in this category or close, if you are you got to do something before the spell grips you sternly.

Mango Dal

A recipe after a very long time. This week was pretty good on the food front , as i experimented with new dishes and flavors, all Indian cuisine. This was inspired by the need of me getting bored of the routine stuff and mainly because I had to cook food for someone else this week other than me. Well, that means i can not survive by cooking just twice a week and lasting on those supplies. For a change i cooked almost 4 times in these 5 days of the week. It does make a difference to your cooking when you are cooking for someone else, other than you. From next week i am back to feeding myself though :-).
This week i made Bhindi Kadhi, Aloo Jeera, Bhindi Masala & the delicious mango dal. Here is the recipe:

1. Boil the Arhar Dal (Toor Dal) in a pressure cooker with salt and turmeric powder added to it.
2. Cut two tomatoes, slit 2 green chillies, and cut a green mango into big slices.
3. Heat Ghee in a Kadhai, once hot add cumin seeds and mustard seeds. Wait for them to sputter.
4. Now add the diced tomatoes, green chillies & ginger. Add a pinch of turmeric powder to this and let it become a gravy.
5. Next add the mango slices to the tomato gravy, and let them heat for a few minutes.
6.Once the Dal is pressure cooked, add it to the Kadhai and mix.
7. Garnish with fresh coriander leaves.
8. Serve hot with white rice.