Gajar ka Halwa (A Dessert Made With Carrots)

These days, we have gajar ka halwa made every other day at our home. The recipe that ma is using is actually my grandmother's. I'm going to post it here. It might not be clear enough because it's a housewife's-own-precision kinda recipe. Plus, I asked my ma to tell me and have loosely translated how she and grandmother would explain it. Like, I asked ma to tell me the ingredients first but she said, "No, you just note them as they come." =D

Basically you will need 1 kg of carrots, 1 cup of sugar, about a cup of malai (cream), almonds and raisins and some ghee (clarified butter)

Peel the top most skin of the carrots and wash them. Cut them into small cubes. Grind the carrots in a chopper until it is almost paste-like. Then add the cup of sugar. Preheat your oven and keep this mixture in the heat for about 15-20 minutes. (The temperature should be just enough to heat it well)

Now, place the mixture on the stove and add the cup of malai (cream) Stir it well till you see ghee rising on the surface. (Apparently this ghee is from the malai)

Fry sliced almonds and rainsins in ghee (clarified butter) and use them for garnishing. And you're done! A delicious dessert is ready! I'm gonna go have some now! 

Toy Story

What I'm about to write may sound like the story of Toy Story 3. Except that it's a true story. And I really don't have the perspective of the toys in my situation. When I went away to University, I spent five years away from home. My little rocking chair, my doll furniture, my 8th grade sewing material, all my markers and crayons (though I wasn't good at drawing ever) were all left behind. Every year when I visited home, I'd decide to sort things out. Throw out or give away many. But some toys, I held onto for a long time. Until I met a family with four kids. I decided it would be reasonable to give away my toys here because there are two boys and two girls in the family. Well obviously most of my toys are meant for girls. I was sick of the toys taking up space in our apartment and so I thought it's best for them to be played with rather than just tucked away safely here. I bet they missed being played with. I first checked to see what toys were actually give-able.
In the end, I decided to give away toy duck, a baby doll, a play house and a set of Barbie sized furniture. When we went over, the kids' mom told us that they seem to like to break toys a lot. This worried me a little but then I thought, far better than being kept on my cupboard and being thrown one day without ever played with again. The kids were first unsure of how the toys were to be assembled. So I sat down with them and put everything together. Their eyes widened as they saw what the toys are supposed to look like. And how were they supposed to know, I hadn't given them any boxes or anything with the picture.

The youngest daughter had already adopted the baby doll and when batteries were thrown in, she was delighted by the sounds of "mama, papa" and the crying and laughter when the doll's hands and feet were pressed.
The playhouse came with the box and instructions on it, so the little boy started to assemble the plastic rods and though I could see he wasn't managing very well at the start, I left him to it. And eventually, he had set it all up!
Their mom called us a few days later saying the kids love all the toys and since they have summer vacations, they've got now something to do even being cooped up indoors all day. When we visited next, I was pleased to see everything was still intact and the kids were having so much fun. And it feels awesome to know that something useless to me is a source of joy to someone else. ^-^

Marble Cupcakes Adventure

I am still in the process in learning how to bake and cook and I consider myself as a beginner. I, therefore, find it simpler to bake from ready made cake mixes. But once in a while, I like to try out making something from scratch. On my good friend Mehwish's blog, I found a recipe of marbled cupcakes. Cupcakes are just my favorite things to bake and I vowed I would give these a try. When I read the recipe aloud to my sister, my first question was, what kind of measurement is "oz". She found it very funny for some reason. Anyway, I learnt it's actually an ounce. (You see why I call myself a beginner now?)
I was just waiting to buy some butter and get started. The impatient person I am, as soon as I got butter, I wanted to make them. My friend was asleep at the time. I looked up her recipe and I started converting ounces to cups/tablespoons. I knew that sugar, flour and butter weigh differently. So I did the math and wrote on a paper what I'd be needing. Didn't have self rising flour so googled that too. And then I began. As I got the flour out and mixed it with baking powder, I somehow felt that the quantity of flour looked way too much. I asked Ammi and she told me to google it again. So after discussion with Ammi I realized just in time that I had over 4 cups of flour when I needed actually just one and a bit more. =D
I messed up the kitchen and I wasn't sure how the cupcakes would turn out because of my clumsiness in measuring BUT thanks to Mehwish's accurate instructions, they turned out just perfect. \(^.^)/