..SouthAsiaRocks..

I've really gotten into cooking more lately :) You basically have to cook everything from scratch here. I really don't know how we survived our first 3 years... but the last year and a half I've actually learned how to cook :) Aashini eats the National food at school and loves it, so I thought I would learn to make some of the foods she likes at school. Yesterday I made: Tamatar Paneer It's super easy! I should have made it long ago :) First you do some tempering. Put a little oil in a skillet and add Yellow Mustard Seeds & Cumin Seeds. Cook them for a little bit (until the mustard seeds have turned a very light brown). Put in 5-6 finely diced tomatoes along with coriander powder, cumin powder, turmeric powder, salt, minced garlic & some chilies (optional - I leave these out for Aashini). Cook it until you've made a nice curry (the tomatoes should be almost a chunky paste-like consistency). Chop up paneer into small pieces (if you can't get paneer...

So I had a few pictures of some things that made me laugh while in Thailand :) This picture below was actually from our last time in Thailand but I forgot to post it - it was during the first part of the Swine (H1N1) Flu scare. Everyone was wearing face masks - especially on the SkyTrain. This guy's mask made me smile :) Something you don't see everywhere... These guys were in a store in the mall putting on make-up :) They were advertising an event that was taking place on another floor of the mall. It was so funny - this picture definitely doesn't do it justice. They had music playing while the people with the balls (with advertisements on them) moved them in a choreographed manner while the 3 people in the back just stood there holding cell/mobile phones (and not moving)... it was really funny :) This made me laugh :) They had special Adidas shoes for sale in Bangkok. These were the Darth Vader shoes - they also had the "Skywalker" and about 5 other kinds...

I still have a few more pics from our trip to Thailand that I wanted to post ;) The place we stayed at in Bangkok was right on a canal. It's pretty nasty water, but I really do love being near water - there's just something about it that makes me happy :) Anyway, they have water taxis all around Bangkok in these canals. Here's the one we saw through our window all day from our room :) We've ridden it before - it's pretty fun. The water is stinky though :) Thailand is almost 95% Buddhist. You can find places of worship all over the city. People will stop by them during their busy days and offer incense, flowers and prayers. There was a ton of incense burning in this one worship site. It seemed like it was really foggy there because there was so much smoke. One thing that was interesting at this worship site was that there were Thai dancers there. People could pay extra money offerings and and the ladies would do singing or dancing while the people that paid s...

Here are a few things we've seen around this small town of Bangkok the last few days :) One of the malls had a really cool Lego display set up... this picture made me laugh :) They built all the famous landmarks in Bangkok and some other things out of Legos - it was way cool! Aashini LOVES Legos now!! She callse them puzzles ;) haha! The girl loves her puzzles ;) Here are some street vendors cutting and selling jack fruit... such a strange fruit :) That's it for now :)

We finally made it! We definitely had a rough time getting here! We were scheduled to leave the Capital at 1 am ... but we were delayed because of the fog. We have a lot of problems with fog at the airport... as you can see, there were a LOT of delayed flights! Look how long they're delayed! Our flight that was supposed to leave at 1 am, didn't leave until 11 am the next day! (yes, that's 10 hours later)... so, since we didn't want to leave the airport and go though all that "stuff" again to come back in, we spend the night in the airport... and what a joy it was!! haha! Aashini did NOT want to sleep! I don't blame her though... those seats were hard as ROCKS! She finally fell asleep at 4:30 am! She slept for about 2 hours :) haha! Here she is finally sleeping! But... we eventually made it to Thailand! On the first day, we began dealing with Diya's passport visa stuff.... so the next day, we took the girls to the Children's Discovery Mus...

This is probably one of those posts that's better to be on the other blog, but this blog is neglected, so I thought I'd post on here :) We made sugar cookies the other day! I got a lot of fun cookie cutters for Christmas and we just needed to make cookies! Aashini LOVES cooking!! The icing turned out really great and really bright! Aashini got to "paint" her cookies! It started off really pretty... Then it got a little messier... By the end, her cookies were pretty brown looking :) haha! Actually by the end she realized she could eat them, and ate a LOT of cookies! haha! Here's the finished product! You can see Aashini's "sprinkle placement" on the dinosaur below... I think that was the only cookie she did that got sprinkles... after that she realized she could eat them and just ate all the sprinkles we gave her :) haha! Here's the recipe in case you want it :) INGREDIENTS 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon baki...

I haven't been out taking pictures very much this year - the whole being huge & pregnant thing has kinda limited that :) There will be a lot more pictures for the next year... but these are some of my favorite pictures from this year :) (you can click on it to see it larger) :)

We went to KFC the other day and saw a couple of funny things that I just had to share :) This made me laugh :) This "Chef of the Day" picture is AWESOME! :) It's not the best pic but it made me laugh (although not as much as the first picture)... Drool #4 on the chart talks about how they keep veg & non-veg things separate... but it's because chicken and peas don't get along :) haha! Not sure why, but it makes me laugh :) More funny things to come ;)