The Great Giveaway

In my last post I went on & on about how I am thankful to bloggers.

Today I need to Thank the most important half that keeps this blog running, THE READERS, as in you lurking human who is quickly marking my post as "Read" in your Google reader and jumping to next !!!! Whoa, you, come back here on my page, right now.

Now I am not really very bashful or dominating(tee-hee!!) and would never ever force someone to leave a comment. But sweetie(ok that is another thing I never ever say), today is a good day and a Wednesday, so would you be kind enough to stay put and drum something in with your fingers on that keyboard. It will do you good trust me.

And while you are at it will you pretty please pick an answer to the following, and leave your comment with your e-mail address, and make yourself a cup of tea and just relax because your life is going to change soon.

Here is the Million Dollar Question:

What would you like to see in this Blog in future

A. More Bengali recipes of all kind
B. More Bengali recipes of Traditional kind
C. Nothing, shut the blog and move
D. More Bengali Recipes of the new kind(??)
E. More Vegetarian recipes
F. Nothing, shut the blog and move
G. More Non vegetarian recipes
.
.
.
Z. Nothing, shut the blog and move

Now here is the deal. Some time back CSN Stores contacted me to do a giveaway at my blog. They have this cool place where they sell everything from Housewares, Home Decor, Track Lighting to Furniture. Check out their site for their amazing collection.

The winner of the giveaway gets a $80 gift cert which they can use for any product that catches their fancy at CSN Stores.

Hand Stand Mixers...


Slow Cookers...


Pressure Cookers...


even Track Lighting for the Kitchen...



Their collections is so good that if I were Goldman Sachs, I would have put in all the comments myself. But I am not going to do that because I have my morals intact and I love you guys. It is you readers who keep me going and motivate me and I owe this to you. However I am yet to make up my mind about people who will put in C, F and Z as their answers.

To win this giveaway of $80 gift certificate do the following:

1. Answer the Question I have above.

2. Leave a comment with your answer and e-mail id. Of course you can also voice your opinion on the Financial Reform Bill, Synthetic CDO's, the Nature, etc. but that is not necessary. And yes I heard about Synthetic CDOs only yesterday and am throwing it around out of context because it is such a scam with a complex name.

3. Blog, Tweet, Facebook about this giveaway. Leave a comment if you have done any and you will be entered twice

4. A lucky winner for the giveaway* will be chosen by random draw

* I do not get any compensation monetary or otherwise from this giveaway

This giveaway is open until May 4th, 2010, midnight EST. Unfortunately CSN stores ship only to US & Canada and I hope I can have something for readers from the other parts of the world in the near future. I will not be blogging or blog hopping until next week, this is time for family only and blog nirvana. See you again late next week when I post the winner. And Thanks for being here.

Eggless Lemony CupCakes

Last week BS's school had a Scholastic Book Fair. This was probably the first time, she had a free rein on what book to buy, without Mom saying "The Barbie Princess book is absolute trash".

She would have probably freaked out if not for the $5 restriction in budget and the voice of conscience that I had put.

And then she finally picked something because I am guessing, the cover looked cute and she loves cupcakes. The book is "It's Raining CupCakes" by Lisa Schroeder. It is about this 12 year old girl who helps her Mom set up a cup cake store and in the process wins a cup cake contest in New York. At least that is what BS told me, don't blame me if it is about Dinosaurs and not little girls.

The book had a couple of recipes and of course BS wanted to do one of those. Now I am not the kind of person who bakes s'more cup cakes or has jars of marshmallow cream in their pantry or wakes up at 5 in the morning to exercise.I don't even know what marshmallow cream is except that if you eat jars of it, you better get up at 5 in the morning to exercise.

So I said, "Why not we make some Lemon Cupcakes ?", with not an ounce of clue about anything to do with lemon cupcakes.

BS loves lemons, she can suck lemons all day long. That adage about if somebody gives you lemons does not even hold true for her because she will happily suck through them anyway.

Thankfully, I had Sunita's Eggless Lemon Bundt cake bookmarked because well it was eggless and butterless and all purpose flourless and yet looked gorgeous. My only problem was I did not have mini bundt pans. I so love mini bundt pans but I didn't have any so I guess if I was making it, it was going to be bundt less. They might as well be cupcakes then I thought and BS loved the idea, the idea of "cupcakes" and "lemon", she didn't know the "less".

This was one case where "Less is More" is so very true. I mean "less" in the ingredients, while eating all you say is "Give me More".

Really is "Less ever More" except in the case of these Eggless, Butterless, Bundtless Lemony Cupcakes of course. Oh and I did it Sugar icing less too because I am mean and think icing-less cupcakes are good enough for six year olds.

I so love bloggers, they share such beautiful gems. And of all I love Happy Cook. You might think I am selfish, but no really I love Happy Cook. And it is not because she picked me the winner of her Giveaway. Ok, that might be the reason, I mean who would not love someone, who gives you a beautiful Cuisinart hand blender. Thanks Happy and Sunita and everyone who blogs and reads and keeps the blogosphere moving.

After BS had a couple of these gorgeous cakes, I asked her to be polite and pose for me, so that I can take one of those pics I have seen in multitude blogs. You know the one where the cute hands are holding something so delicious that the pic looks ethereal.

So BS stood and fidgeted, and talked,

and fidgeted, and moved her fingers

and I said "Enough"

Read more...

Lemony CupCakes

Original Recipe

Preheat oven to 350F

In a bowl, place
1/2 Cup + 2 tbsp flour,
1 tsp baking powder,
1/4 tsp baking soda and
zest of one whole lemon in a bowl and rub in with the fingertips.
Note: I used all purpose flour, though the original recipe says whole wheat flour(atta)

In another bowl, whisk together
1/2 Cup + 2 tbsp milk,
4tbsp oil and
6 tbsp sugar
Note: Since I avoided the icing, I increased the sugar by 2tbsp

Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and tip in the milk mixture. Fold in.

Add 6 tbsp of lemon juice and fold in. With a wire whisk mix everything together. Taste. It is yum. Stop and proceed, lick the whisk if you wish.

Grease 12 cupcake liners.

Cut up some peaches from the Dole Fruits in a Cup and place in each. This is totally optional.

Spoon the mixture into the cup cake liners. If you have 5-7 year olds, at this point they will probably add sprinkles, crayon shavings(Nooooo!!!), M&M, anything to the cupcakes.

Place the pans in the center of the pre heated oven and bake for about 25-28 minutes or till the top is lightly golden and a toothpick inserted through the center of the cakes comes out clean.

Cool the cakes for a few minutes. Gently remove the cakes and cool completely.

If you are loving and caring and not mean like me, then mix a few tbsp of icing sugar with a little lemon juice to make a free flowing icing. Drizzle the icing on the cup cakes.

Ek cup kara Cha -- a cup of strong Tea

He had a slight built. His face was weathered. Fate had not been kind to him and it showed in those deep lines. His sparse hair around the temples were already turning white. They shouldn't have. He was Ma's younger brother, five years younger to her black dark hair.

Bring water to boil

Almost every Saturday he stopped by at their home after the half day at office. Every Saturday Ma would keep aside the choicest piece of fish from the day's macher jhol, some tarkari and ladle-fulls of dal before she served lunch. Baromama never arrived in time.

The water merrily bubbles

Ma would sit, waiting at the dining table long after everyone was done.Some days she would crane her neck out from the verandah at the lane now empty at noon, and finally go off to take her nap. Baba who generally was averse to the human race and found more kinship in The Statesman editorial than any mortal, would fold up the paper around three in the afternoon, declare, "Nah Khoka aaj ar elona" (No Khoka is not coming today) and retreat to his study. She still waited, occasionally glancing out of the window, beyond the football field, trying to locate the very familiar hunched figure with a battered briefcase in hand.

The water boils furiously

It was strange that she and her other siblings liked him so much. You wouldn't think kids looked beyond the exterior, the materialistic outer cover, to the honest soul within. You wouldn't believe they preferred a warm heart to a cadbury's dairy milk.

Spoonfuls of fragrant tea leaves

He would eventually come, much after lunch around tea time. Ma would get agitated, "Saradin kichu khas ni (You have not had any food almost whole day)", she would complain. He would smile sheepishly and mutter something about getting late. He didn't want lunch. Tea was all he wanted, tea was something he survived on. A cup of strong black tea was his lifeline. "Khali pete cha khas na, omlette kore dichi (Don't drink tea on an empty stomach, have an omlette)", Ma would say, trying to rejuvenate her young brother in that half day every week. Ma had this theory about the stomach being totally empty four hours after you ate anything at all.

Getting ready to pour

She would make the omlette. Carefully breaking two eggs into a bowl and then beating the eggs with a fork. Sometimes she would add a tablespoon of Milk as she had read in Femina. She would beat vigorously, the fork making "ting-ting" noice against the bowl. She would add a handful of chopped onions and some chopped green chili. On the nonstick Trupti pan, she would spread the omlette and fold it, the center well done and the sides crisp.

Baromama would eagerly have the omlette amidst noisy sips of tea. He would praise her omlette making skills and launch on his favorite topic, his future dream project.

They say you can see your future in tea leaves

There would be many more cups of tea that he and Baba would gulp down throughout the evening. There would be arguments, Ma would give advices, distant relatives would be discussed as the water boiled and tea leaves brewed.

It has been more than a decade that she has missed such Saturdays. But she still waited for one of her trips back home, to snatch half a Saturday to see if Baromama still came home after half day at work. If Ma still waited for him at lunch.

That will not happen though. The early morning call across the oceans last Tuesday just confirmed, Baromama would not come home on the Saturdays she would visit Kolkata this summer, he would never come home again.

This is a part of my Food Fiction series. It might seem strange but it is the simplest food that has all the fiction entwined around it. This post goes to Aquadaze for Of Chalks and Chopsticks. What is your Food Story ? Send it over to Aqua.