odzer's blog

Today is a historic day for Nepal. They will be transforming in to a Republic. Ever since I was a kid I have always imagined Nepal as a monarchy and then a constitutional monarchy. In June of 2001 just as I was about to leave for Kathmandu I heard the news of the Royal family massacre. During that visit the streets were full of sad and mourning people and you could see that people had a deep respect for the late royal family. Now in the June of 2008 these people are ready to say bye to the centuries old system of monarchy in Nepal. This is not a political blog but a personal one, I have an interest in collecting money and stamps and I would like to showcase Nepal’s royal era currency through this blog. Perhaps one day these notes will be valuable, who knows! Please click on gallery images for a bigger size.

At this point I should just confess that I am a Maccha addict. I love the taste and there is no way I can describe how it tastes. It is simply exquisite. Today I decided to make a Maccha-Chocolate layer cake. It has come out to be very nice and the crust is very tasty. At the end of making the batter I was a bit confused regarding what should be the top layer but I guess making chocolate the top layer seems to have paid off. As you can see in two different slices the layer is not consistent however it does have an interesting pattern over all. I hope to make more Maccha desserts in the future unless I get distracted, I have been dreaming of nuts as well lately…..

The tofu that we get in India is quite hard, they try to texture it similar to Paneer. Some people even use Tofu instead of Paneer! Any way today I made a hard tofu stir fry with carrots, green peppers, onion and black bean sauce.  I added some Hoisin sauce for the sweetness.It came out with a very nice crunchy texture that I love and a very sweet earthy taste. Whenever I do not feel like eating rice, noodles, pasta or roti I always do a stir fry it fills me up adequately due to the vegetables and is not a very heavy meal as well. Oh and if you have a good stirfry you can always turn it in to Pita bread sandwiches the next day. Now is that not cool? 

Yesterday I made about a dozen green tea cup cakes. I used Maccha or Japanese green tea. I like making cup cakes mainly because I find them more convenient. These came out pretty nice. I plan to do some different kinds in the future. The weather has been very nice here lately and I finally feel like baking something again. I would have liked them to be a bit more brown but I like the beautiful green colour.

Today I went out for a walk with two of my friends. We found this dog sleeping merrily on a car parked just two or three houses away from mine. This dog is a member of the pack that usually chases cars in my neighbourhood. I think this dog is in love with cars! Anyway my friend told me that this dog often sleeps on cars and we also noticed that there were scratches on the vehicle due to the dog climbing on the car. How he manages to do that is a mystery as well. 

This afternoon I made Ratatouille for lunch. I had a large Zucchini lying in my fridge and I decided to take advantage of it. I loved the way it came out. Although cooking in such hot weather is a bit of a trouble. The texture of the eggplant is really appealing to me in this dish. I have a lot of it left over and I am going to buy some nice French bread and have it cold with that soon. I added green bell peppers, fresh tomato, parsley and basil to this particular dish although thyme or rosemary could have given it a nice touch as well. If I still some of it left over I am planning to eat it with scrambled eggs for breakfast. As far as this dish from Provence goes it is versatile and easy to do. The vegetables are easier than eating a very meaty dish in the middle of the hot Indian afternoon.

We have a rotational farmers market called “Apni Mandi” in Chandigarh. Although calling it a farmers market would be a bit of a misnomer. It has many vendors joining in to sell vegetables as well. You can find almost about everything in this vegetable market that you would like to buy. However you should not really hope for very cheap prices which are likely to be found in the bigger stores. These markets can be cheaper than the normal vegetable markets that do not rotate. In any case people here are spoilt for choice when it comes to buying their vegetables and fruit. I wish I could say the same for meat but that is not the case. I had stopped here to buy some fruit with my mother last week so I took these photos in the peak of a hot afternoon. It was above 40ºC and the place was pretty desolate. In the evening time however the rush picks up and you can jostle shoulder to shoulder with huge crowds as you buy your vegetables. Some people seem to enjoy doing that, I would rather just go to a store.