Microwave Chocolate cake

On popular demand, I’m blogging my chocolate cake recipe. Its a straightforward and basic recipe – no icing, nothing fancy – very useful for occasions when u want to bake a yummy cake even on a weekday.

 

Ingredients:

1 and 1/2 cup refined flour (maida)

3 eggs

3/4 cup melted butter

3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp baking powder

2 tbsp cocoa powder

small quantity of milk (for getting the right batter consistency)

almonds, raisins, chocolate chips (optional)

Procedure:

Preheat the microwave oven on convection mode at 180 degree Celsius.

Mix the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder in a bowl. Beat the melted butter, eggs and sugar in another bowl till it gets fluffy and the sugar dissolves. Of late, I’ve been using an electric hand mixer for beating which makes it much simpler and quicker to prepare the batter.

Now, slowly mix this egg mixture to the flour mixture and beat till you get a smooth batter. The batter could be a little thick – smoothen it by adding milk till the batter is of a thin ribbon consistency. Once the batter is ready, add almonds, raisins, chocolate chips or other dry fruits of your choice to get that extra flavor. Mix the batter well.

Grease the cake tin/bowl with oil and pour the batter uniformly in the bowl.

I’ve noticed that the cake comes out better if you wait for the oven to cool a little after the preheating is over (probably for 3-4 minutes). If possible, keep the bowl on a low rack and bake in convection mode at 180 degree Celsius for 40 to 50 minutes. In between (after 20 mins or so), you can remove the low rack and continue with the baking. After 40 mins, check if the cake is done – insert a thin knife and see if it comes out clean. If it does, your cake is done. If not, continue for some more time till you feel that the cake is baked properly. I still use this trial and error method after 45 minutes to check if the cake is fully done.

Once done, allow the cake to cool before serving.

Broken Promises

I’ve always believed that I’ve had this problem of lack of discipline, or should I say lack of resolve. The result – broken promises to myself. I’ve lost count of the number of promises I’ve made to myself – and most of them have met the same fate – they’ve been broken. The most common and frequent one has been the promise to maintain a healthy diet and exercise regimen. Fruit-laden, low carb diets don’t last for more than a month and sincere, regular workouts don’t last for more than 20 days.

It doesn’t stop at this. My lack of resolve surfaces in a lot more ways – half-hearted attempts at continuing sketching, half-finished books and (staying in context) irregular updates to my blog. So much so, that I still have 2 incomplete drafts in this wordpress blog – waiting for attention from me.

The irony of the matter is that I seem to be completely the opposite at work – I’m quite focussed on anything I’m doing at work until I complete it. I find myself unable to multitask a lot at work – which is good, because it means I can focus all my energies to the task at hand.

This again brings me to the same question – if I am capable of focusing, then why am I unable to exhibit the same degree of resolve to non-work related activities that I bring to work-related ones? I’m sure its not the question of enjoying what I’m doing coz I definitely enjoy sketching, blogging and exercising more than writing code. Is it a case of priorities then? Or is it my conscience that prods me into commitment for my work because I get paid for it? Or is it a case of pure laziness? (My husband would vouch for the last one )

One thing is for sure – none of the “time management” or “prioritize your activities” or “seven habits” trainings or books ever help when you need these simple answers. Each person is on his/her own to look for such answers.

Kashmiri Dum Aloo

For Mahashivratri this year, I decided to make dum aloo – a must-have of any vegetarian Kashmiri feast. For the benefit of non-kashmiris, let me first clarify a misconception. The brown, sometimes sweet so-called “Kashmiri Dum Aloo” served at hotels is nowhere close to the original. The original dum aloo is deep fried, fiery red and painstakingly cooked. Reason enough for me to blog the recipe. Here’s what the final product looked like:

At the outset, I was a little apprehensive. I’ve cooked dum aloo a few times before and its been appreciated by non-kashmiris, but connoisseurs of the kashmiri cuisine would’ve passed it off as a lame attempt. This time, though, the results were excellent. Enough talk, lets get to the recipe now.

The Recipe:

10-12 small potatoes

Oil (lots for deep frying, around 3-4 tbsp for cooking)

Kashmiri Chilli Powder (the quantity varies depending on how much you can handle, make sure though its enough to get a nice red color)

Saunf (aniseed) powder, called baidyan in Kashmiri (around 1 and 1/2 teaspoon)

Soonth (Dry ginger powder), called shonth in Kashmiri (around 3/4 tsp)

Curd or Dahi (2-3 tablespoon – if its the hung curd variety, mix it first into a liquid form)

Cloves (3-4 pieces)

Cardamoms – black and green both (2-3 pieces)

Salt to taste

Try to choose the right sized potatoes – don’t go for mini potatoes, just select the smaller sized ones. Boil the potatoes, peel them and prick each of them on all sides with a toothpick or a knife. Heat a generous measure of oil in a kadhai (wok). After the oil has heated up, put the boiled potatoes in the oil and reduce the flame to the minimum. Now, let the potatoes deep fry. I’ve seen enough recipes of the dum aloo that hardly talk about the process of deep frying the potatoes. I would say that how you fry the potatoes will finally determine how well the potatoes are cooked. The trick is to let the potatoes slowly deep fry at low flame till they turn brown. Make sure you don’t over-do it. The potatoes should be light to medium brown in color when you switch off the flame. It might take close to an hour for the potatoes to be ready if fried at low flame. Be patient, give it that hour and stir around the potatoes at regular intervals of time to fry them evenly.

In a kadhai or pressure cooker, heat 3-4 tbsp of oil and add the cloves and cardamoms to it. Add salt, saunf powder, soonth powder and chilli powder to the hot oil. Now, these spices may burn in hot oil, so quickly add the curd, keep stirring. Add a cup of water, stir and bring to a boil. Now, add the potatoes and let it simmer on low flame. Stir around the potatoes at regular intervals of time. Most of the water should dry and you should see the oil come to the top before you switch off the flame. This might take another 45 minutes to an hour depending on the quantity you are making.

The dum aloo is best served with white rice, and mind you – seldom alone, there have to be at least 2-3 more side dishes with it( Kashmiri cuisine, of course). Watch out this space for more such recipes.

Georgia Sunshine Village

Just a day before New Year’s eve, we were looking for a quiet retreat to a place close to Bangalore. We had just a day off, so it had to be a place not more than 2-3 hours away. Googling for such places, I came across a resort located close to Sivanasamudra and around 120 kms away from Bangalore. This is the only resort in the vicinity of Sivanasamudra falls. We made the bookings – the money has to be paid in advance – and headed for an overnight stay at Georgia Sunshine Village with Sito and Vrushali.

The Route:

We started from Bannerghatta Road, hit the NICE corridor and headed towards Mysore road. There’s practically no road connecting the Bannerghatta Road to the NICE corridor, so be prepared for a dusty and bumpy ride for around 100 meters or so. But the NICE corridor is a pleasure to drive on – a stark contrast to all other roads in Bangalore. This road led us very quickly to the Mysore road. We drove straight on the Mysore road (SH17) till Maddur via Bidadi and Ramanagaram. At Maddur, we took the left fork towards Malavalli. On crossing the Malavalli town, we drove straight ahead till we reached the ‘T’ junction that leads to Shimshapura road. We turned left at this junction and went ahead till a board for Georgia Sunshine Village directed us to turn right. Now this right turn leads to an uncomfortable 2-km stretch drive on a narrow untarred road before you reach the resort.

The resort:

As soon as we stepped into the resort, we were greeted by a cute little daschund, Whisky, as well as the owner of the resort, Mr Leonard. As we discovered later, there were a few more daschunds apart from Whisky, a friendly Labrador and another fierce looking Labrador (this one was tied, luckily). The resort has around four cottages, each having two rooms set back-to-back. The room Sito and Vrushali were put up in had a semi-open bathroom i.e. the roof covered only half the bathroom. The rooms were quite spacious & clean and the resort itself was quite tastefully done with rugged walkways, an enclosure for rabbits and lots of flora. There’s also a small swimming pool and an activities room (with a TT table and some board games) at the resort.

The Food:

The most important part of any laid-back holiday at a resort is the food served by them. The food at GSV was quite decent, though not outstanding. The menu wasn’t extravagant, but we enjoyed it, nevertheless. We didn’t order any extras – like tea/coffee etc – but I think that anything extra, even as simple as tea, is charged here. The package includes morning as well as evening tea, apart from the meals.

Activities:

GSV arranges fun-fishing at a small pond near the resort. It was fun initially, got boring after the first few minutes. There’s no fishing to it, it ought to renamed fun-feeding. There’s a bonfire arranged by the resort at night and the board games, TT and the swimming pool are available all of the time. Early in the morning, GSV arranges a small trek – I would call it a nature walk – across the nearby village fields. This was the best part about the stay at the resort and we really enjoyed it.

About 14 kms from GSV, is the Gaganchukki waterfall and another 10 kms is the Barachukki waterfall. We didn’t have time to visit both after checking out of GSV and on consulting Leonard, we decided to visit just Barachukki which is supposed to be better. Here, one has to descend a steep rocky stairway to reach a lagoon right at the bottom of the falls. Coracle rides are provided where they take you almost underneath the waterfall. We went coracle riding and the experience was good. Apart from the coracle ride, there is nothing much to do here. As all other tourist spots in India, this place is damn crowded, so sitting down and relaxing is out of the question.

After the visit to the falls, we headed back to Bangalore.

My new “makes-me-feel-younger” mobile

What do you do when you’re no longer a college kid but want to feel like one? You buy a red-and-white mobile with an in-built MP3 player that you can flash around and hope that people mistake you for one. Well, I’m not sure if thats why I bought the Nokia 5300 Xpress Music, but I must say that I’m quite happy with it. The sound quality is amazing. It looks good (or thats what I would like to think), and has all the features that a phone in its price range ought to have – camera, bluetooth, PTT and an expandable memory slot.

Checkout the official website at:

http://europe.nokia.com/A4199012

The Bartimaeus Trilogy

The children’s fantasy genre has gained a lot of popularity thanks to a certain teenage wizard called Harry Potter. I’ve read all the six Harry Potter books, although I have to admit that I found the last few to be a bit of a drag. This is not going to be Yet Another Blog about the Harry Potter series. In fact, it does just the opposite. I’m going to talk about another series – a trilogy – that belongs to this genre. The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud.

One of the things that appeals to me about this trilogy is exactly that – that its a trilogy. 3 books. Doesn’t stretch beyond that. And hopefully, thats going to save the series from becoming a drag (I haven’t read all 3 yet). Another point worth mentioning about these books is their subtle humor. The protagonist – Bartimaeus – comes across as a djinni with a sense of humor. Also, one shouldn’t miss the footnotes – they’re not exactly in sync with the story, but they make an amusing read.

Here’s the fancy website:

http://www.bartimaeustrilogy.com/home.html

Drumstick sambar

Of late, I’ve been trying my hand at quite some recipes, and surprisingly, the results have been pleasant. I’ll be posting these tried and tested recipes on this blog, as a reference for myself as well as for sharing it on the internet.

I’ve always loved the south-indian sambar. I’d cooked sambar a couple of times before with good results, but I was still looking for an easy way to get the perfect flavor. I chanced upon a sambar recipe on the internet – it sounded good and simple. I did make a few personal modifications to the recipe and this is what the result looked like:

The Recipe:

1 and 1/2 cups toor dal
2 drumsticks (vegetable)
1 medium onion
1 capsicum
1 medium tomato
1 teaspoon turmeric
4 teaspoons sambhar masala
wet tamarind pulp
salt (to taste)
1 tablespoon oil
1/2 teaspoon asafetida powder
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
curry leaves
4 dried red chilies (whole)

1. Chop all the vegetables into medium-sized pieces. Drumsticks should be kept 2 inches long. Put veggies in a pressure cooker with the Toor dal and turmeric powder. Add enough water to cover the vegetables. Cook for about 20 minutes.

2. Soak the Tamarind in warm water for about 30 minutes. Remove the pods and filter out the tamarind water.

3. Open the pressure cooker and make sure the dal is cooked well. Add about 4 heaping teaspoons of Sambhar masala. Also add the tamarind water and salt to taste and stir the mixture.

4. Heat oil in a kadhai and add asafetida powder, cumin seeds, curry leaves and red chillies. Add this ‘tadka’ to mixture.

5. Boil the mixture for 2-3 minutes and serve hot.

Galibore Fishing Camp

Another JLR fishing camp. It’s got the usual Jungle Lodges facilities – around 10 pretty cottage-tents, hammocks, coracle rides and treks (oh, and the fishing, of course). This wouldn’t be the best time to visit, though. I’m sure the place would look much prettier after the rains. Its only 100 kms from Bangalore, and if one is looking for a lazy 2-day sojourn, this is a place to consider.

Website: http://www.junglelodges.com/resort_overview.asp?resort=Galibore

No silence please!

Two-and-a-half years is a long time. Especially so when you haven’t spoken a word. That’s exactly how its been with this blog. I intend to break the silence with this post, and hopefully, continue blogging this time.

While each of us are getting on with their respective mundane lives, there’s an Indian who’s attempting to row across the Atlantic. He’s been out in the sea for 40 days, rowing away and fortunately, updating lesser mortals like us with his sea-logs at http://www.humanedgetech.com/expedition/bhavik/

Hats off to Bhavik. And here’s wishing that he successfully completes this feat.

Windows – tools for developers

Found 2 very cool tools for application developers on Windows. I have been using these for testing my apps on Windows XP. They’re quite cool, especially the ProcessExplorer one. ProcessExplorer shows almost everything about a running process – open registry entries, threads, file handles, sockets and their states etc. etc.
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp.shtml

The other tool is FileMon that displays the current file sytem activity in real-time. Apart from normal open files and directories, it also lets us track named pipes – so you can debug IPC between applications if they use pipes.
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/filemon.shtml