Carrot Muffin

After going back and forth between Windsor Manor and Cafe Terra, we finally decided that home-cooked food is what we are going to have - for our big Saturday BREAKFAST! Venue was our friends place, time 7.30am and the menu - waffles, pancakes, omelets and MUFFINs :)

We all did get-together at around 8am. We were all ready to prepare our menu items, when the power went off. So the waffles remained in the waffle-maker half cooked and the chopped carrots that had to be grounded remained in the mixer. But we had yummy crepes (made from wheat flour) with maple syrup, french toast and vegetable omelet with mixed fruit cucumber spinach juice :D

When my friend said she wanted muffins for breakfast, I could think of only the banana walnut muffins that I so often make these days. I bought walnuts, and the bananas were at home. I was planning to bake the previous day, but just didn't get to do it.

Saturday morning, we just knew we had to make muffins. M loves carrot muffins and I had never eaten one earlier. I love carrot cakes, but had never tried muffins. Carrot is one of my favorite vegetables, so I was excited to learn a new recipe.

Instead of grating carrots, we thought chopping and grinding in the mixer would be faster. So we chopped the carrots into small pieces. But since there was no power, and (luckily) we had bought extra carrots, we grated around 6-7 fresh carrots.


We had 2 bowls - one for liquid ingredients, the other one for dry ingredients. 3 eggs, 1 cup vegetable oil, sugar, 1 tsp vanilla essence in one and 2 cups wheat flour, salt, 1 tbsp baking powder, 1 tbsp cinnamon powder, 2 cups chopped walnuts and 3 cups grated carrots in the 2nd bowl. We mixed the liquid ingredients and added into the dry mixture. We mixed the whole thing nicely till it became a smooth paste. Pre-heated the oven for 10 minutes.


While the oven was getting heated up, we added the mixture to the muffin tray, and baked for around 10-15 minutes.



The YUMMIEST carrot muffins were ready!! :)









Deepavali

This one is long overdue - by exactly a month.

October 25, 26, 27 were Deepavali days - Indian festival of lights! Its one of my favorite festivals, few reasons being good food, sweets, holidays, bursting crackers AND giving and lighting DIYAS.

We have been giving diyas to friends and families for the last 2 years. It all started because of a NGO called FAME India. It is an organization that works towards training children with disabilities in certain trades, to help them stand on their own. The children are taught trades based on their ability, skills and interest. During Deepavali, the kids paint the diyas and sell them. We have been buying the diyas from FAME and distributing them.

I first make a list of people and categorize them area-wise. Then I get the total count of diyas to buy. We go thru the diya list and order them about a month before the festival, as there is a huge demand for them. This time we ordered beautiful cloth bags to put the diyas inside. After going to the work shop where the kids work, we ordered around 4 cardboard boxes full of diyas and bags. I was soo excited when I actually got the diyas home.

The whole process of distributing diyas is fun :) I just love looking at them as they are soo colorful. Each and every type of diya is very beautiful. The kids have done an amazing job of painting them so artistically. They are really talented. And even the bags are stitched so well. I had ordered 12 different kinds of diyas and one box full of regular candle diyas to light at our house on 3 days during the festival.

We get to see most of our family and friends at least once a year as we visit everyone to give diyas. So we have a lovely time meeting people :)




FAME website: http://www.fameindia.org/

Joy of small things

Ohh, the joy of small things!!

A friend got me a coffee mug from my favorite coffee place - Starbucks. And every time I have Coffee or Tea in this mug, I feel soo happy :)

Sipping coffee/tea in our garden takes me to another world of happiness :)

I saw a sparrow in our garden today, sparrows have become a very rare sight these days. Everyone in our house felt so happy that a sparrow visited our garden :)

Watching the mangoes grow in our garden, seeing my tomato plant getting taller everyday, listening to birds chirping, staying at home on a Sunday_ _ _ and the list goes on!

Its not just me, many of us feel excited about smaller things like this. Its so important to enjoy these day to day things in life. I feel it helps in appreciating life around us a lot more.

Karmanye Vadhikaraste

I always feel that I learn something new everyday. Expectations - a huge topic, and my learnings about it in today's notes :)


We shouldn't expect anything from anyone is one of the common theories that we get to hear often. The closer a relation we share with someone, the expectation level increases proportionally. We take it for granted that whatever we feel, the other person should reciprocate. We usually forget that 2 individuals, however close they are, are 2 different people. And 2 people cannot think the same way!


Expecting something from life/any of our actions is also not the smartest thing to do. Let me quote the words of Krishna from Bhagwadgeeta - Do what you have to (do your duty), but dont expect any fruits/results from it. This is quite tough to follow. But I feel that if we are having fun doing our duty / through-out the journey to the goal, we really dont think about the results.


So basically a person without expectations from anything/anyone is a happy happy person :D


Moment of the day - Shopping, coffee, shopping, yummy lunch and tea with mom :)