..SouthAsiaRocks..

We went out of town week before last to Nepal. When we left, I left a few carrots on the kitchen counter.   It was pretty hot and dry before we left (now we're in Monsoon!)... and well, the carrots shriveled to nothing! It's pretty amazing how much they changed! I guess our house is pretty hot :) haha! Here they are next to a new fresh carrot so you can see how much they shrank! Awesome!

I bought some of these off this cart the other day... When we first got here, I saw them all around (especially this time of year) and had no idea what they were... Now, I buy them all the time - they're a great snack and fun to cook with... Do you know what they are???....  Water Chestnuts !!!!  It's popularly known as the "Water Fruit" here.  They are those fun white, sliced circle shaped things that are in a stir fry and other dishes :)  Anyway, I had no idea this is what they looked like in their "original" form :) haha!    This is another fruit that I really like... It's bit of a pain to eat, but it's yummy!  This is a Custard Apple!  It's super sweet but has lots of big annoying black seeds haha!  It's really good though and full of Vitamin C :)  (you can tell how sweet it is... if you look closely you can see the bees on it!).

We have a small mall that has opened up in the last 6 months near our house.  It's not full of shops yet (only about 10 stores or so are open) but it has a good mini-wal-mart-like-store and a play area for the kids!   It also has.... Sno Cones (or Shave Ice, Shaved Ice, Snow Cones, etc) :) They are so fun!!!  You can find snow cone type things all over the city, but it's usually made with unfiltered water.... this is made with filtered water! whoo hoo!  It's the little things.... :)

We have a very busy night market on Fridays in our neighborhood. It's really fun :) I love walking around in it :) The other night I saw something different in the market. It was a cart full of cake!!! You could buy slices of cake or cake in a cup (cupcake?) and they would put it in a plastic bag for you to take with you!! I thought that was so cool!! How fun is that!? You never know what you're going to see on the streets! :)

The other night we got the opportunity to host 5 people that we had never met before for dinner at our house. These fun people are from all parts of our country and are a part of a cool program that helps them in going to the US or UK to further their education and then come back and use that education here in this country :) We hosted 5 students that are going to be going to the US to get their masters this fall. We had them over for dinner to help them know what it's like in America, to eat with Americans, to eat American food, and let them ask any question they may have. It was super fun! We were supposed to make American food but also make a Vegetarian option. I couldn't really think of many veg American dinners, but I decided that Bean Burritos were quite American (haha! yeah, I know that it's Mexican, but almost all American food is from somewhere else). We also had a Chicken Casserole and a cheese dip. I did an apple cobbler with ice cream for desert (VERY Am...

The city is starting to look a little Christmassy! Every year there seems to be more Christmas stuff out in our city. The malls are crazy-decked out this year! There are plenty of scary Santa masks!! Aashini doesn't seem to be scared of Santa this year... we'll see when she sees someone dressed up in this mask! Santa with blue glasses made me laugh :) The other day I made about 100 no-bake cookies! My friend Erin and I wrapped them up (individually) and put a note on them and gave them out to our friends in another part of the city :) Here's the finished product! :)

I had a few random pictures to post... It's been raining a LOT lately! Even if it's raining, people have to work. This guy (below) had a creative rain guard :) It's hard to tell in this picture, but it was like a funny hat :) Here is one of those weird funny fruits... This is Lychee . It has a pink/red outer rind. You peel it off and there is a white fruit inside with a huge black seed. It's a funny fruit! Just some plums, cherries & lychees for sale at a night market :) OK, that post as a little boring... oh well :)

More funny Thai foods :) I love to see things in other countries that are the same brand as we have in America, but different (or "same same but different" as they say here) :) Funny chip flavors are some of my favorite things. Here's an interesting one ... Blueberry and Hazelnut :) I haven't tried this one yet, but I think I will soon :) Lemon & Sesame... I did try this one - I really liked it. It was very different though :) I'm not sure what these things are (do you know Morgan?) but I think they're so pretty :) This one just made me laugh... I'm sure that this exists in America in the South or at least at the Fair, but here are some fried hot dogs :) haha! They LOVE hot dogs here :) They also love all kinds of weird sea creatures here. Squid is very popular.... anyone want some squid on a stick? I think this is an octopus tentacle on the grill - so different than the food I'm used to eating :) This one is very interesting. It's ...

I thought it was time for another South Asian Foodie post :) Having a new baby means that I'm still not out and about as much as normal which means this blog is a little more boring. It also means that food is one of the things I have pictures of and I'm posting :) haha! So, one of my favorite places to eat is called "Haldiram's". It's basically a restaurant full of "snacky" foods. You can eat them as a meal though and they'll really fill you up - very cheaply! One of the things I love is called: Aloo Tikka (in the picture below). It can look a lot of different ways. It's basically a potato patty that's full of seasonings and spices and fried. At Haldiram's they put a sweet & spicy sauce over it and a coriander (cilantro) sauce. It's so yummy! Here's a recipe for Aloo Tikka if you want to make it :) or here's a video of how to make it if you like that better :) One of the treats I like to get at Haldiram...

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...

Oops - I meant to put this post on this blog (since it goes with the previous post)...so I'm going to post it here too :) haha! Well, after writing that post on McDonald's, I was really wanting to try the breakfast :) So... we dropped Aashini off at school on Tuesday and went out to find a McDonald's that serves breakfast. There aren't any that are close to our house, but we found one that wasn't too far away :) We were both really hungry by the time we got there so we ordered one of everything they had on their breakfast menu :) haha!! Now, don't get freaked out, there are only about 7 things on the breakfast menu here :) They even had hash browns!!!!!! One of the things I got was the Veg McMuffin - I just had to try it :) I was a bit surprised when I bit into it and corn popped out :) haha! It was good though :) And yes, I'm pregnant and puffy in all those pictures - even my wrist/hand in the pic above! ahhh... pregnancy :)

So I haven't been out as much lately... I'm huge and pretty uncomfortable, so walking around hasn't been a big priority... so I don't have much to share on this blog right now :) I thought I'd post about a few things we have here lately that are American with a twist ;) We have McDonald's here and it's good - definitely different than the US (I posted about it before in case you're interested)... Anyway, now a few of them have started serving Breakfast! I'm excited. I haven't made it to have breakfast yet but I can't wait to try it :) One of the things they sell is the Veg McMuffin :) Sounds good! In our country eggs aren't usually considered veg (or vegetarian - does that answer your cupcake question Erin?) so this one is some sort of veg patty that has spinach - I can't wait to try it :) We also have Pizza Hut here. There are some funny toppings (although definitely not as funny as Thailand has!)... For some reason they lo...

Pumpkin ROCKS!!! This time of year there are so many pumpkin recipes out there. I don't know if it's pregnancy or just the fun pumpkin time of year, but I've been trying them all! haha! It doesn't feel like fall here (in the 90s today), and they don't celebrate the same fall holidays here that we do in the US, so it's a fun way to make it feel more like fall here :) Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Lattes 2 cups milk 1 cup strong coffee (I used 3 T of grounds to make 1 cup) 2 T canned pumpkin or fresh 2 t vanilla Sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves to taste Mix all ingredients in pot, co ok over low heat until steaming. YUM! I'm more of a decaf girl - this is good with decaf too! ............................. A lot of pumpkin recipes call for pumpkin pie spice. I haven't seen it here in South Asia Land, so I made up my own batch :) PUMPKIN PIE SPICE 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (dal chini) 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg (jaiphal) 1/4 tsp ground cloves (laung/lavang) 1/2 ...

Right now we're in holiday season over here. This time of year is my favorite. It's pretty much one big constant holiday right now until January. Right now a big holiday called Navratri (or Navratra) is going on. It's a special 9 day holiday (Navratra is Sanskrit for 9 days)... but actually the holiday in our area of the country is 10 days... The 10th day is Dusshera (the day the burn the huge statues). You're supposed to fast from any food if you can (most people don't), but if you can't you're supposed to eat special fasting foods. The ways that people celebrate, fast & do rituals are very different. Generally, this is the thought: For this holiday, you are supposed to eat one meal a day (usually after sunset before your bath). You are supposed to bathe both morning and evening You can have juice, milk & fruit during the day. For this holiday, they are supposed to fast from grains, garlic, onions, eggs or meat (some Hindus do eat meat). ...