As random as it gets...

A lot has happened since my last post... So here is a list of stuff that has happened. I don't know why but I felt like it was important for me to record them for no reason other than to be able to remember...

Shelby turned 8 months old yesterday, and it's been a roller-coaster ride. The first two month of having her were insane, I just did not know how to handle a hyper active puppy... She would nip, scratch me, get angry and start barking if I yelled at her... There have been times when I just broke down out of sheer exhaustion and confusion as to what to do. At the same time she has changed the way I look at life, P n I absolutely cannot imagine our lives with out her. She has so much love to give and is the basis for the kind of person I want to be. One unintentional thing that has happened is that we have connected with a  number of dog lovers in our society. In the nine months that we lived here we did not meet as many people as many as we have met ever since we got Shelby home. It's been absolutely wonderful.

P and I attended three weddings in three months! We went to Indore, Chandigarh and Mangalore. Three different cities, three culturally different ceremonies and three amazingly awesome cuisines! And also three different sets of friends... It was awesome!!! I got to dress up, we ate mountains of delicious food and also managed a little bit of sightseeing in whatever little time we had. These weddings also made me realise, that it does not matter how different the ceremonies were, the fun and the frolic, the stress, dealing with annoying relatives its all a part and parcel of the ceremony. N it is such a bitter sweet experience for every one involved... Like a slice of life :P

I have finally figured out what I need to be focusing on career wise. I wanted to get into the field of psychology but was tentative as I was unsure of how to go about it and most importantly if it was something I could be good at. I have been mediocre in most things in life and in the last few years it has become important for me to figure out what it is that I am good at. I don't want to go through life feeling that I haven't accomplished anything. Last year I looked at a couple of courses that I could do and one attracted me the most. But it was already to late to apply. So I decided to wait for the next batch and till then take life as it came. Joining this course has been one of the best decisions I made. I love the subject, I understand the complexity of it and best of all I know that there is a lot for me to learn and I don't take the learning for granted. But, I can see myself doing this for a living. Having a practice, being a counselor and helping people live a better life on their own terms! Because it's always been my motto to live life like that. I always knew that I wanted a profession that would require me to be a better person each day, I did not know how to go about it, but it was something that drove me right from the time I graduated from my MBA. I cannot believe that my journey has been this long... and winding. I have no clue how  I landed here, but I am glad that I did! I know it is just the beginning and that I have along way to go, I will have to do another Masters course! And that is just insane... But here I am... At the starting line again and looking forward to it. Just realised... fountainhead is once again such an apt title for my blog!

Life as it is....

So,  its been a year again.... And no posts... A lot has happened. In March last year we moved to Hyderabad... My home town. Sorry our home town. Its something that I always wanted, to move back and be closer to my parents in a city I grew up in. 

I longed for familiarity in the first year of being married. I hated being in a new place with new people, completely out of my comfort zone. But as years passed and as it always happens I made new friends, connected with a friend I already had in a new city. We, I guess found comfort in each other because we were the something familiar to each other in a new place. 

By the time we had to move we had made a life for ourselves, I learnt a lot of new things and basically grew up... not only as an individual but also as a part of a couple. We came a long way from being a newly married unsure couple, navigating through the complexities of sharing a life together. Its been quite a journey for both of us.

So when we moved back, I obviously did not want to... I missed the people and the life we had built. But it was time for a new chapter in our life. After almost a year I finally feel a little settled in my hometown, even more so in the last three weeks, ever since we got a puppy home. Her name is Shelby and there could not have been a better time for her to come home. Now that I am responsible for her upbringing, I am re-acquainting with my self. Getting to know newer facets of my personality. I have realised I am not as patient as I should be. Its been an emotional journey wanting to do right by her and to make sure that I bring her up right. I have been documenting all the challenges I face and am hoping to learn and come out on the other side as a better human being. 

Pumpkin Soup

So... in my quest to eat healthy food, I have realised that (or rather my homeopath made me realise) soups are a good thing to add to my diet. 

Now I don't like the regular soups. If I am going to have soup, I better have interesting soups. I am thinking more along the lines of broth or clear soups with loads of vegetables and meat. Something that I can have as an entire meal. I am not about to go sit through my entire evening cooking a three or even a two course meal. What I am also trying to do is get a little bit of prep done so that on the next couple of days I don't have a lot to do.

So the other day I baked a pineapple upside down cake. No, I am not going to put up the recipe because, it's not my recipe. (As the oven was on already, after baking the cake I roasted pumpkins and cauliflower - separately). Not that the recipes I put up here are completely my original. I love food and have been looking up recipes for things to make for ages. I love cook books and cooking shows. My earliest memory of a cooking show is of Yan Can Cook where Yan chopped up a cucumber at the speed of lightning. I remember being in absolute awe!

My cooking process is as follows:

• I either think of an ingredient or a style of cooking and start thinking of what it would taste like.
• Then, I look up different recipes online (remember the goal is always to make it simple).
• Now obviously, I live in India and we don't always get t
  
  he ingredients we want (the obvious part would be me not getting the ingredients). I even had to find a substitute for sour cream. So now you know.
• Then I make changes, try and make the recipe more simple and make it at home.
• So these are the recipes that are going to be posted on this blog.
• Or else there will only be pics of things I made

So coming to pumpkin soup, when I was thinking of something substantial I thought of pumpkin soup. And this is how you do it people...

We need

• Pumpkin (chopped), quantity depends on the number of people. So for two big bowls of this teaming hot soup, I decided that I would use about 500 gms of pumpkin (without the seeds and stuff)
• Onion - one small peeled and quartered
• Garlic - just a few cloves whole
• Olive oil (depending how much oil you wanna put) - I put about 2 tablespoons of it
• And cracked pepper and salt ( try sea salt, its cheap and definitely brings something different to the table.

For the soup, I took the washed and chopped pumpkins, onion and garlic and put them on a baking tray. I drizzled the olive oil and salt all over them. I baked it in my oven for about 45 minutes on 220 C. Actually the oven time completely depends on your oven. If you look up online a lot of chefs roast the veggies on that temperature. I kept the pumpkins in the oven till I felt they were cooked through. This can easily be done a day ahead. Something I mentioned earlier.

Once the pumpkins cooled down, I put them in the blender (along with the onion and the garlic) and blended away. In Indian households we generally don't have stock and so its okay to put in just plain old water. The pumpkins and the onion and garlic have great flavour in them.

I then put the pureed pumpkin mixture in a thick bottomed sauce pan (and this is because I am clumsy and I don't want to burn the damn thing). I brought the mixture to a boil, let it simmer for about 5 minutes and it was ready to eat. Now, you can add more water if you think its too thick, but remember to cook it through every time you add water (I just make sure that it boils). The consistency should not be too watery.

And that's that. You can serve the soup hot hot, with perhaps garlic bread. I think that would be a great meal on its own!