It happens only in my kitchen..

I wanted to make palak paneer. Yes, you heard me right. I am not a great cook. I look into you tube or blogs for recipes and make it. In fact I learnt the basic rasam that way. I am still in my maternity leave na. So, I have lots of time at home, when baby sleeps.

Coming back to where I started palak paneer. When I googled I got sanjeev kapoors link. It was simple. Here is the recipe. The recipe was for 2 bunches’ of palak. But great me, took the proportion for one bunch. It resulted in too much of chilli taste. What did I do?? I looked at the second link. I introduced my own idea of adding potato to it. Oh, I forgot to say that I bought palak 2 days ago, it was half dry. And I forgot to buy paneer. So, I bought liter milk extra to make panner. But what will you get out of milk in water ( ya, my milk man doesn’t put water in milk but he puts milk in water. You understand what I mean na.) so, the quantity of paneer what I got was small. So, need potato to make it taste better.

So, after preparing the curry, I had to take another kadai. Start with oil, jeera again. Added onions this time. Fried the boiled potatoes in it and then added the first made dish to it. And my mom came into kitchen asked me,” you didn’t put kotamalli and karvepilai( coriander and curry leaves)”. So I added that also and made it a south Indian flavor.

Finally, the dish is ready. But in spite all efforts, the chilli taste dominates. But, my darling family is ready to eat my experiment.

Forgot to say, I am cooking a new dish every day. I am sure, all of you wondering why now. I realised that, my daughter is going to ask me, “don’t you know to cook this also?”. So, I am getting ready. What are you thinking now? What did I do all these days till I got my daughter? Ha ha ha.. Lucky me, had my MIL cooking for me and packing Dabba for me..

Ashreya became Advika…

It’s really difficult, when you have to name your baby. Too many people and too many options. Its difficult to satisfy all. There is star, numerology, religion, region linked to it.

Here is the stand of each person in the family, while I named my daughter.

Me: her name has to start with “A”, as my name starts with A.

A’sD: people should not tease her because of the name. I am not bothered about anything else.

MIL: which ever name the priest says.

FIL: we shall name her as per birth star.

MOM: I will go with your MIL.

DAD: naming of the baby has to be baby’s parent’s wish. I don’t have any say on it.let her nick name be Bunty ( I love you dad)

SIS: I want the baby to be named Amrutha.( she was quite adamant on this)

Finally we named her as per my wish. Her name is Advika.

I liked the name because…

a) It starts with “A”.

b) Its not so common name, though there is already a blog in this name.

c) My name and baby’s name, both have 6 letters.

d) It’s a Sanskrit name.

e) Its meaning is also good. It means ” unique girl”. Someone who thinks and works differently.

f) My husband liked the name( surprisingly)

g) And finally, I didn’t keep the name according to my MOM or MIL or FIL’s wish.

Note: according to birth star, we need to name her with starting letter “ CHO”. And the priest suggested “Cholika”. It is supposed to be Goddess name. I know, everybody thinks of the song “ choli ke peche” after listening to the name. so, it was easy for me reject MIL and FIL’s selection. And convincing MOM and SIS was little difficult.