Gifted Gorgeousness SAL April Update

Hello Friends,

It's that time of the month when we show what gifts we have been working on or/and what crafty gifts we have received. If you don't know what I'm talking about , check Jo's blog for more info. This is a easy SAL where you have choice to stitch any designer, color or pattern, just that it should be a gift for someone or gift from someone.

I never got around to write a second GG post last month, so I will show the gifts I received in February & March.

I met my college friends during my last visit to India and was treated with beautiful handmade gifts.

First is a lovely crochet scarf made by friend S. I would like to be a narcissist here and tell you that I have been after S for picking up a hobby and pushing her to crochet whenever she gets time. I take a little pride in telling that she now crochets regularly and creates handmade beauties.

Next is a painting made my bestie . I love the blast of colors in this one, it even has my name Mini written in Hindi.

My friend A painted this coffee mug for me 

Birthday gifts from Tammy, elephant cross stitch card and chime from Sri Lanka and Cat cross stitch which resembles my cat Twitch.

If you are wondering will I ever show what gifts I made, the answer is yes.
I started a new project for which I may get triple GG points
1. The design is from a gifted magazine by Tammy
2. The fabric is a gift from a cross stitcher I met thru fb
3. Its a gift for my mother's 60th birthday.

Now only if you can guess what it is:

For anyone guesses it right, will get a postcard from me. 😀

Mid-life crisis:
I have been doing a lot of thinking these days about life , my goals , what I want to do in future . I took a one week break from crafting to get some perspective. Still looking for answers so crafting has taken a back seat and I'm OK with that for now. Meanwhile I'm enjoying cooking new recipes and most of my weekend time is spent in kitchen.

It's a long weekend here and we are enjoying the extra time at home, watching television ,sleeping and playing with my cat.

That's all my friends, I will be back with a IHSW report next week.

Getting back to routine

Hello Friends,

Is it the 15th already? Just a few minutes back I was thinking that this weekend is the IHSW and I will put up a post for GG and IHSW together (sense the laziness here) . Another look at the calendar and I realise that its the 15th today and time for a GG post. Gifted Gorgeousness is a stress free SAL being hosted by Jo . Go check the easy peasy rules if you wanna join us .

As my post title suggests, I'm trying to get into a routine these days. We moved to a new appartment on the 22nd and it was quite a smooth move. It helped that we were living in a furnished appartment earlier and we had very little furniture to move. We didn't hire any movers and packers and were able to shift on our own.
We were able to arrange all the new furniture and kitchen appliances in 4 days after office hours. The reason I rushed moving  was that I wanted to celebrate Diwali in a new house. Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights is one of the biggest Indian festivals and my favourite too. Cleaning of the house is one of the main ritual associated with preparation of Diwali. The cleaning begins at least 15 days prior to Diwali and involves opening the old trunks and deciding what to keep and what not to.
I mentioned to hubby that I wanted to move into the new house before Diwali as that meant a super clean house and all new stuff. Luckily he agreed.

We enjoyed the festivities for five days and had some friends and family visiting us during this time. I made traditional Diwali sweets and snacks and decorated the house with lights and colors.

You may ask that why should I talk about getting back to routine if the move was so smooth. Well I have been struggling to pick up my needle since August , for that matter I'm not even enjoying cooking which is my second favorite hobby. I don't feel motivated to either craft or cook , which has turned me into a couch potato.
September was vacation month, so again no time for stitching.Then came October,when I committed to participate in a handmade fair with one of the local crafters . I wasn't able to make stuff as the stitching bug is AWOL. May be some other time...

The lighting in the new house is not so conducive for cross stitch , all the bulbs are halogen focus lights. Not enough light to stitch and it's gets dark by the time I get home from office these days. I'm determined to set up a corner to stitch soon.

Yesterday was a good day though..I picked up my journal and cleared the back log of entries .Last weekend I tried two new recipes ,so I'm getting a feeling that I will get back to my craft routine soon.

OK, enough of rant , now some pics of handmade Diwali gifts I received and a scarf I finished knitting for my sister-in-law .

Gifts from Tammy

Gifts from Z

Gifts from Karen

The dishcloth is sky blue in color in real life.

Simple Garter Stitch Scarf for SIL

Some pics of Diwali decor

Small Rangoli for Choti Diwali/Diwali Eve

Food Table decor on Choti Diwali

Rangoli for Laxmi poojan

Food Table set up for Laxmi Pujan 

Handmade lantern

A view of  the dining corner of the house

The runner you see on the table was painted by me in year 2000 or 2001. I never had courage to use it before fearing that some food will drop on it and leave stains. This Diwali I gathered the courage and used it for the table set up. Here is a full picture of the full dining set, with mats on the left and napkins on right. You can see stains it's got from keeping it in trunks for 15 years.

Last weekend I attended a very interesting exhibition , however I will save the pictures of that for my next post.

November marks the start of winter here in Kuwait. Temperatures have dropped to 20s (deg C) and I'm enjoying the pleasant weather. I hope you are enjoying the weather in your part of the world too.

P.S. Welcome to new followers. Thank you for following my blog and leaving a comment. Please leave you blog address next time you visit me. I would love to check your blog if you have one.

IHSW May Part 2 report

Hello friends,

Hope you all are enjoying Sunday in your corner of the world.

I had a great weekend – we went grocery shopping, had family over for dinner and I cooked so many new recipes. I know its Hermit weekend and I was supposed to stitch as much as I can. However, I love cooking and hosting guests so doesn’t feel bad if cooking cuts my stitching time once in a while ..lol

I stitched my House of Margaret Mystery SAL piece during IHSW. We are on week 7 and the last part will be released next Friday. In my introduction post to this project, I wrongly mentioned that the SAL will last 17 weeks.

Here is a before pic

Here is an after pic.

As you can see, the SAL is not a mystery anymore..haha. We see Alex, Marty, Melman (from the movie Madagascar) in the picture above. However I’m still guessing who the grey animal is, at first I thought it’s an elephant, because of the big ears in the pattern. DH says it’s a donkey. I don’t remember a popular elephant or a donkey from the movie. So, it looks like it’s going to be Gloria with long ears.

I’m hoping to finish this project next Friday when the last part is released. A happy dance is long overdue.

  

I will leave you with a picture of Black bean quesadillas I made for lunch yesterday. They turned out delicious. If you are interested the recipe, it is from http://thekitchensinkblog.com/.

Instead of using canned beans and store bought chipotle sauce, I cooked the beans myself and made chipotle sauce with Indian chilly.

FOTM SAL October Check in( The post where I declare I'm a one project girl..lol)

Hello Friends,
We have been experiencing unusual weather here in Kuwait with thunderstorms,lightning and rain.
Though part of north Kuwait have seen flash floods and water logging ,the part of country I live in hasn't experienced any such problems. I'm loving the cloud covered skies, wet roads and clean trees.

I have finished stitching my fractal bookmark which I will show in my next GG post. I decided to scrap the HAED I started on January 1st as I now longer feel motivated to stitch it, which makes the flower series my only WIP. I'm being a good girl and resisting a new start..let's see how long can i resist.

Here is my progress on the EMS flower series which I'm stitching on a single piece of 14 count aida.
I have finished the March flower,except the back stitching. Started the May flower with the frog visiting 5 times in the little stitching you see below...grrr.

With the weather being so nice ,we have been trying to explore Kuwait. Friday we drove to a public beach but it was dark by 5pm so we took a short walk along the beach and came back in half an hour..haha.
Yesterday we visited The Tareq Rajab Museum which is a privately owned museum with collections from the Arab world and Asia. It was an enriching experience with the artifacts displayed in a good lighting and information available in English and Arabic.

It's been long since I posted about my cooking adventures. I have been trying new recipes but I still need to work on my food photography skills. A picture of Mushroom and Spinach Frittata I made last Wednesday which the family just loved.

Wishing everyone a happy November.

New recipes and An Upcoming Meetup

The cooking fairy is here (that's my equivalent of stitching bug) and I have been trying a lot of new recipes in the past few days.

DH & Me are again in that mode where we refuse to eat the common daily food and everyday we want to have "something new" for dinner.

I'm going to add a new feature to my blogging about cooking. I'm now going to  rate the recipes I try for ease of cooking, time required for cooking,ease of availability of ingredients and DH's rating for taste.
I'm not a big chef or food connoisseur that my ratings or review will matter much . However , there are reasons why a person would decide to try a new recipe. Ingredients and time required to cook are the main factors which let me decide whether I will cook that recipe or not. With my work schedule. I'm prefer less time consuming recipes.

1. Oven roasted Zucchini

Zucchini in one of the new ingredients I have added to my food plate now. Zucchini is not native to India and is only available in special stores there. Since I have moved to Kuwait, I wanted to use it in my cooking so I bought a big box of Zucchini last week.

DH loves roasted food and this what I cooked ...
Recipe source:http://www.cookingclassy.com/2014/05/garlic-lemon-parmesan-oven-roasted-zucchini/
Ease of cooking : 9/10 if you have a oven at home(Higher rating -easier to cook)
Time required : 30 mins , Rating 8/10 (Higher rating -less time to cook)
Availability of ingredients :8/10
DH's rating : 8.2
Changes made to recipe: I used a table spoon of cheese spread instead of parmesan cheese .

2. Zucchini With Corn and Cilantro

Of course one more zucchini recipe.. remember I bought a box. Sorry no picture

Recipe source:http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20509747_8,00.html
Ease of cooking : 10/10
Time required : 15 mins , Rating 9/10
Availability of ingredients :8/10
DH's rating : 6.6
Changes made to recipe: I used coriander instead of cilantro .

3. Spinach with Eggs (Yumurtalı Ispanak)

Recipe source:http://almostturkish.blogspot.com/2009/04/spinach-with-eggs-yumurtal-ispanak.html

Ease of cooking : 9/10
Time required : 30 mins , Rating 8/10
Availability of ingredients :10/10
DH's rating : 6.2

Spinach is not one of my favourite greens and DH absolutely loves it. Turkish cuisine has many spinach recipes and I chose Yumurtalı Ispanak this time.
Please do not hesitate to try this recipe as the DH rating is based on the bitter taste of spinach. Turns out that he had bought a local green leaves(don't know the name) thinking that it was spinach.
I'm sure if cooked with spinach the rating will go up to 8 :)

4. 3 B Stir fry

Recipe source:http://www.tarladalal.com/3-B-Stir-fry-(-Healthy-Diabetic-Recipe-)-33690r

Ease of cooking : 9/10
Time required : 30 mins , Rating 8/10
Availability of ingredients :7/10, May have to buy bean sprouts from a super market
DH's rating : 8.75
Changes made to recipe(not intentional): I read baby corn as sweet corn ;)

The recipe turned out to be delicious...I wasn't expecting that.
Next time I'm thinking of serving it with plain rice.

That's all on cooking front, let me know if you try any of these recipes.

Remember how I told you that I'm desperate to meet crafters locally. I think my prayers may have been answered...I read about World Wide Knit in Public day somewhere on the internet, and thought why not. I'm a part of knitters group and I know the basics.
So I'm now hosting World Wide Knit in Public day in Kuwait (I'm teeny meeny proud of this).
More prayers answered--I found Tammy through one of fellow bloggers post.
Tammy is an active blogger, crocheter, crafter and a lady with most infectious positive attitude. I haven't met her yet ,all this is what I gather from her blog and few email interactions. So I contacted Tammy and told her about my idea WWKIP in Kuwait. She encouraged me and have been actively spreading the word about the event. Thank you Tammy.

Well when I say I'm hosting the event, there is not much I need to do apart from some internet posts and registering the event.
I know I shouldn't expect a big turn around for the event but I'm sure I will meet new knitters/stitchers/crocheters there.

Inspired by Tammy's blog I will now try to include one picture of my life in Kuwait.
This is a picture of the first flower which bloomed at my house in Kuwait.
We just loved it and couldn't help clicking a picture ...

On stitching front ,I have finished stitching the Sunflower bouqet with only the dreaded back stitching left to do. There are 5 shades of back stitching and the chart is in black and white . So I will use my imagination ....

See you soon for the GG post.


 

FOTM SAL May update and some cooking

Here is my entry for Flower of the Month SAL hosted by Alyssa .

I have not been able to stitch much of this as my current target is to finish Sunflower bouquet for my colleague who is going to retire soon. As advised by my stitchy friends, I am now using two strands for stitching for the flower series. But I didn't have the courage to frog what I had already stitched using 3...do you think the difference is too obvious or looks ugly?

In other news, I'm happy to tell that I have attended two meet ups of a group of knitters in past 2 weeks.
Don't be surprised...I don't knit but this is result of my desperate attempts to a have a group of cross stitchers. I have been trying really hard since last 1 year to gather or meet people interested in any type of needle work here in Kuwait. Sadly, nothing worked ..so I  signed up on Raverly and joined the local ravelry group.
The ladies in the group have been kind enough to absorb me and we had fun in the last two meetings. While the ladies chit chat and knit, I stitch (at the pace of a tortoise) counting everything thrice. I must say that cross stitch is not a easy craft to take along...I am finding it difficult to stitch sitting in a chair with chart in hand and I'm already thinking of learning crochet specially for the meet ups ;). At home, I stitch sitting on a sofa with my legs stretched and the chart pinned to one of the cushions.

The weather here is at its worst now with the temperature nearing 50 degree Celsius. This Friday, DH & I ,dared to step out of the house in the noon and we repented it so much. The sun was blazing and our feet started burning...Well its just the start of summer.

On the cooking front, I have lost my cooking bug...however guilt took me over and I tried my hands at making my mom's recipe of a lentil cake last Tuesday. The result wasn't upto my expectations so I'm not going to blog about it until I get it right.

Today I made Menemen (Turkish-Style Scrambled Eggs With Tomatoes)  for dinner.

This dish is very similar to Indian version of Scrambled eggs-Anda bhurji.
I like tomatoes in my Anda Bhurji but DH doesn't like tomatoes much...
So when he asked me to make something eggy today, I proposed making Menemen instead of Anda Bhurji .
I'm a conservative and usually don't make changes in recipes. The only reason I divert from the original recipe is unavailability of ingredients.

I followed the recipe by Burcu and used capsicum instead of green peppers.

The other reason I like Menemen is because I like eggs to be slightly undercooked and this a perfect recipe for that.


Its end of another month and good time to think how productive the month was craft wise...





 

Adventures with Food(Continued)

There is a famous proverb in Hindi which says "Why do we live, to eat "...and that very much defines why food and cooking is such a big deal in common Indian house hold.
Until a decade ago, the practice of eating in restaurants/hotels/cafes wasn't so common in India. With more females starting to work full time in offices and daily commute to work places eating upto 3-4 hours of a day..eating in restaurants has become a more of a necessity.

Not that I think low of females who don't cook three meals at home...I still am a traditional at heart who loves to cook for family and guests.

What fuels my passion for cooking and food is that my partner and I are big time foodies .We get bored of eating the same cuisine daily and crave for "something different" everyday.

So it turns out that I tend to feel guilty if I don't try a new recipe for a long time or cook an elaborate Indian meal each week.

Here are few new recipes I tried this week. I'm sure many of you must have tried these many times.

1. Guacamole en Molcajete

This is a new dish which I ate at one of the restaurants in Covent Garden in London. It was the restaurant's recommended dish and I'm must say it met the expectations.

It's essentially freshly prepared Guacamole served with nachos.

I followed the method they used  :

Ingredients:

1.Avocado - 1big
2.Chopped onion
3.Chopped tomatoes
4.Chopped coriander
5.Lemon juice
6. Jalapeno
7.Salt and black pepper

Recipe:

Mix salt and black pepper in the lemon juice. Deseed and scrape the avocado from its cover and mash it nicely. Mix all the ingredients above with mashed avocado and lemon juice mix.The dip is ready to be served with Nachos .
As I wasn't able to find Nacho chips nearby I served Doritos with the dip. A bit sad that I had to settle with Doritos as they contain MSG or E621 which is not a healthy ingredient.

2.Dal Baingan(Lentil-Aubergine with spices)

Another dish I ate at one of the most famous Indian restaurants near Brick lane in London.

It's amazing how even after eating and cooking Indian cuisine for 33 years I still find dishes in Indian cuisine which I haven't eaten .

I used the recipe from this source:

http://sanjeevkapoor.com/recipe/Baingan-Chana-Dal.html

The dish turned out it to be a bit different from the way it was served in the restaurant may be because I  over cooked the dal. The one served in the restaurant was cooked such that lentil retained the shape of the grain and whole aubergines were served on that.

3. Dosa chutneys(Red chutney and coconut chutney)

I'm usually reluctant to make chutneys or dips as I think it takes too much time to make them and  if the main dish itself is tasty...who needs them ;)

Today I decided to make these chutneys to make the meal complete and DH was so happy.

The complete Dosa meal

Recipe source:

http://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/coconut-chutney-recipe-coconut-chutney/

http://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/red-chutney-for-dosa/

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL March update and lots more

This is going to be a long post as I have so much to talk about the last 10 days...

First of all my entry for the month of March for the Gifted Gorgeousness SAL .

Birthday card I made for DH...It was a surprise as I stitched it whenever he was asleep :)


I'm finding it difficult to take time out for stitching these days which explains the bigger portion of red in my stitch pie :( . I decided to keep some area of the card unstitched as I was short of time.

On the cooking front , I tried making pasta in red sauce for the first time and it turned out good. The recipe can be found here:
http://www.tarladalal.com/Pasta-in-Red-Sauce-37563r

It was the festival of colors-Holi on the 6th ,though we didn't play with colors , I invited my friend and his wife for a festive lunch on 7th . I was successfully able to prepare "Ragda pattice" and "masale bhaat" just before the guests arrived. Why successfully, because there was no electricity for  3.5 hours and wasn't able to cook during that duration.

After the lunch, we had a good chat for 5 hours...yes I'm a talker...
My friend's wife brought Holi special food preparations and we were no more missing home ...blink blink.

Here is a picture of goodies which I got as part of International Women's day celebration in office.

I'll be travelling to London for business on 29th and you know what, all I want to do is buy lots of cross stitch supplies from there. I have already made some arrangements for that(picture me with a mischievous smile ).Imagine its my first visit to London and I have little zeal to visit the  tourist spots .

So if you have some recommendation for a good LNS or a thrift store in and around London , please let me know.
Of course the foodie in me still wants to know what are the must eats in London.

I'm hoping to get a lot of stitching time over the easter weekend during my stay in London if I don't go around and visit the London attractions.

I have now added separate pages to my blog for
a) Other crafts which I pursue( in a hope that these pages will keep me motivated.)
b) Pics of my mom's garden.
c) Cross stitch Finishes-Check this out for details of my finished projects.

  

Happy day

I had a great day today....

I woke up a bit early for a weekend and then decided to go to office instead of Saturday. Office has been crazy busy since January leaving no time for my personal stuff.

I tried a new recipe for lunch -Moong dal stuffed capsicum. DH rated it to 6.I lost a few marks due to poor presentation ;),the capsicums were too big to stay upright in the tray.

The recipe can be found here:
http://sanjeevkapoor.com/Recipe/Moong-Stuffed-Capsicum-Sanjeev-Kapoor-Kitchen-FoodFood.html

After  fruitful 4 hours in office ,when I came back home, I wanted to have some snacks in evening.
So I thought of making dhokla from scratch. In the past , I have made dhokla using instant mix available in stores.

Why is that whenever you want to try a new recipe, you run out of the main ingredient...DH had to run to the nearest store to get gram flour.

The dhokla turned out good..it was fluffy...which is a main feature of a good dhokla. However I felt that taste of  gramflour dominated the whole flavor.

I got the recipe from:

http://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/khaman-dhokla-microwave-recipe/

DH's rating of Dhokla :7.5

And the day ended with an assurance from my friend that he will take care of my noisy budgies while we are on vacation in India. Thank you friend..im so relieved to hear that.

Oh how can I forget to tell you that I finished a cross stitch piece today....my first finish of 2015. I'll post the pics of the piece soon.

What a wonderful day...two new recipes, first cross stitch finish of 2015 and caretakers for my budgies arranged....

I'm going to have a good night sleep today.


Hugs
Mini





 

Tomato and Basil Bruschetta

Who doesn't love the crunchiness of  tomatoes ,topped with flavor of fresh herbs....this dish combines both in a perfect way.
I tried my hands at this recipe yesterday and loved it so much that I had to blog it for you foodies. The original recipe is from Jamieoliver ,I added a few more fresh greens which were available in my kitchen.

Here's a simple and quick recipe for a yummy appetizer customized for Indian household.

Ingredients(makes 8 slices)
1. Bread slices...original recipe calls for loaf of French or Italian bread
2. 4-5 tomatoes
3. 4-5 tbsp. of olive oil
4. 2-3 cloves of garlic
5. Fresh basil(Basil belongs to the same biological family as Tulsi).U can use dried basil easily   available in food market.
6. Fresh coriander leaves
7.  Fresh mint leaves
8. Salt and black pepper
9. Vinegar
10. Small quantity of chopped onion

Procedure
1.Wash and cut the tomatoes in half. Remove the seeds and squeeze the juice a little bit. Chop the tomatoes.
2.Add crushed(or finely chopped) garlic ,chopped onions,olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper to the tomatoes. Mix these in a bowl.
3.Add washed and chopped coriander ,mint and basil leaves to the above mix.
4. Keep this mix aside for 15 mins and let the flavors soak in the tomatoes.
5.Roast the bread in a toaster/oven or on a non stick tawa.
6.Add the topping to the roasted bread and serve.

This dish can be a perfect party snack/appetizer .For a kids party, just add cheese on the bread while roasting...they will love it.