I keep thinking about posting more often here, but time just flies by. Last few weeks had been very hectic. We just returned from a week long vacation to South Dakota. The trip planning/shopping took more time than I imagined. But I am glad it went well. Ishaan just started going to preschool today – I am trying to calm down my nerves even after I saw he was ok when I left him at school this morning!. So I thought I will write something here today and instead of posting a recipe, I thought of posting something that I wanted to post for a long time – some pictures of my home from rural India.
When I visited India last November, many of you asked me to post some pictures of my aayi’s beautiful garden. I took dozens of pictures, of every corner, but never got the time to post any. I haven’t even processed them yet!!!. But anyway, I will get to all of it soon, now that I will have few hours free for myself!.
I spent first 2 decades of my life in this beautiful home. Somehow, even after living in different places, setting the home all by myself, I still feel this home – where my parents live, where I spent my childhood, gives me that feeling of really being at home. Every corner of this place has many memories associated with them. I don’t think I can put down everything in words, so I will just stop here and show you all some pictures that I clicked.
Almost every house in the village has a “tulsi katte”. We pray here every day. Pappa waters the tulsi (holy basil) plant every day. Aayi lights a diya every night, there is a small opening in the rectangular blue stone you see in the picture where diya can be kept. Â Every couple of years this place is painted, we loved painting it when we were kids.Â
Sprinklers are relatively new here. When we were kids, pappa watered the plants with huge pipes. It used to be such a hectic process. Now the sprinklers make it relatively easy.
My parent’s garden has many banana, coconut and jackfruit trees.Â
It is very hard to save bananas from monkeys. Everyone covers them to make it harder for monkeys to get, but aayi tells me monkeys have figured out a way to open these bags!! Our front yard.Â
It was Diwali time, what is the fun of Diwali without some firecrackers. We thought Ishaan won’t like it, but he enjoyed them a lot. When we were kids, pappa would bring big bags full of firecrackers, we would light up the entire house. We would light diyas or candles infront of the house. It was loads of fun.
Heating water. We still use this traditional water heating system, dried trees and leaves are used for this.
A well infront of the house – this is the only source of water for us. My parents still take out water using a rope for drinking and cooking. A electric pump is used to fill a overhead tank for other uses.
River is very close to our home, so we get very fresh seafood.
It is lot of fun to stick hand in a bucket of live crabs and take out one! And yes, that is Ishaan!
On the way to the river which is a short 5 mins walk from home. It is lined with beautiful coconut trees.
The trees you see in the below picture are on a tiny island. Many people live on this island, but they have to cross the river for their daily shopping and other things.
Sunset at the river is so beautiful.
Women go to catch shell fish in the river.Â
Clams. Yumm
I have a strong aversion for any ready made frozen stuff. I am ok to eat them once in a while on vacations, but I try not to buy them when I am at home. So I have been trying to make chicken nuggets at home. We have recently started ordering nuggets for Ishaan at restaurants and he eats them sometimes and just walks away some other times.
The only thing I have ever prepared with ground chicken was kheema , since it does not look like chicken no one wants to touch it (other than me, who is a big fan). So I decided to make something different this time. I wanted to make something that Ishaan would eat, so burger was out of question. He does not care for them so far, I will introduce it slowly. I tried these nuggets, all of us really enjoyed them. The best part was, since I used ground chicken, the spices got mixed with every bit and they turned very flavorful. Just make sure not to over cook them.
Ingredients: 1 lb (approx 0.45kg) ground chicken breasts 1 tea spn thick yogurt 1 tea spn chilli powder 1/2 tea spn garam masala 1 tbl spn finely chopped ginger 1 tbl spn finely chopped garlic 1 tbl spn finely chopped coriander leaves 1 cup bread crumbs Oil Salt
Method: Add yogurt, chilli powder, garam masala, ginger, garlic, coriander leaves and salt to chicken and leave it aside in refrigerator for 30mins-1hr. Heat a tava (I used cast iron) and spread some oil. Make small balls of the chicken mixture, slightly press them on the palm of your hand. Then roll them in bread crumbs. Shallow fry them till chicken is completely cooked through. Serve hot on their own or with ketchup or a cold raita.
Serves : 4-5 Preparation time : 30mins
