TUSAL and cooking

Before I go into my vacation (well V's vacation rather) updates, let me show you my TUSAL for the month

 The heat and humidity are very irritating. Our inverter's battery died and we are waiting for the technician to turn up and replace it. He was supposed to finish that over the weekend, but when do they ever come at the promised hour?! Luckily our scheduled 2 hour power cut has not been happening since the last 3 days (touch wood for that).

Despite all this, am really enjoying V's vacation. V and her friend decided to have a sleep-over last Friday. That's right, they just decided on their own and did the entire planning. They "asked" us for permission after all that, if you know what I mean. So, V and I picked up her friend last Friday afternoon and she was with us till Saturday evening.

On this occasion, I baked a veg bolognese for dinner on Friday

I was very pleased with the way it turned out. The best award was the fact that the kids literally licked their plates clean and their faces were glowing after the mean.

They then watched a movie while having dessert - a take-away family pack of black forest ice cream.

Before picking up her friend, V and I visited our craft's supply store and bought some stuff to organize my beads.

I am a lot relieved to just look at all my stuff like this. These are just the gold and silver findings. I still have stored my beads in individual Ziploc bags.

V has been asking me for this hip-belt, we call it the oddiyaanam. This is a traditional kind of belt, usually worn over a saree or a lehenga.

So, we bough the beads needed to make this and V came up with the design. I just helped attach the hooks.

Keeping up with the mango season, I tried out a new mango recipe - Mango muffins

Though it was slightly dense, I liked it. Here's the recipe for the muffins.

On the stitchy front, I have completed about half of November cottage. I will show a picture when it is all complete
Now, that's the story from my end tonight. Till next time.. Take care.. Be happy.. Keep stitching.. Au Revoir

More on Summer

I had taken almost the whole of last week off to be with V. We normally do not go anywhere for summer, but have a nice relaxed stay-cation. Last week was a good stay-cation for us with some trying-to-catch-up-on-local-events.


V finished painting the sun/moon figure and it's ready to be put up on her room door. She's thrilled with the outcome.

 We went to the beach 

and V had her first ever horse ride.

She was terrified and would not climb the horse. With some coaxing, she finally agreed and though a little scared she did enjoy it.

Cashing in on the mangoes, I made some mango kulfi.

This is my second attempt at kulfi and I should say it came out very well.

Here's May all done up.

I did not have a suitable ribbon or an embellished cord. So decided to make one with the 3 main colors used in the pattern. I love the effect the combination of the colors create.

I have now started November and as luck would have it, the ugly frogs paid me a visit. I did the flowers along the border in the wrong shade!! Ugh, so much for concentration

Well, that's all I have for today. Till next time.. Take care.. Be happy.. Keep stitching.. Au Revoir

Summer is here

Ohh yes, that's right.. it's May and very much into the summer.
Vacation has started and it's time to think how to keep V occupied, something that interests her, something useful, but not related to studies. Now for a girl, there are a whole lot of things that could be done.

So, we have been to the library once so far and borrowed a few books. For the first time I allowed her to pick the books that she wanted, so am I learning to let go?? I don't know, but it was a lot less stressful to allow her to handle even the smallest thing. We then went to this fair, where self-employed ladies, who were mostly home makers, had made kits of various kinds. We bought one of those, which had a finished shape of moon/sun made of plaster, but had to be painted. Now, that's how the vacation started.. let's see how the rest of it goes.

Summer and mangoes go hand-in-hand. I decided to try my hand again at mango cheese cake.

I used britannia cream cheese this time (I had used home made paneer the first time) and the result was awesome.

Tried the coffee milkshake last sunday afternoon.

Added a liii'll bit of chocolate ice cream to it and topped with hershey's syrup of course.

Also baked a savory bread for breakfast

This is a tomato herb bread. It was great, but I think a little more kneading would have been good.

Now, on the stitchy front.. I have (finally) completed October

I changed the color of the cottage and made it all white as the original color was the exact same shade as my fabric. Also, this was stitched on jobelan. That's what 123 sent with my order instead of the regular linen. Jobelan is so smooth and soft to touch, loved the feel of the fabric.

I have now started working on November. And, oh I have to "finish" May!! Gosh, how fast a month can go by.

That's all from me today dear friends. Till next time.. Take care.. Be happy.. Keep stitching.. And happy holidays :) Au Revoir

Tusal

Wow, I have been away from the blog for over a week now, and definitely late with the Tusal for the month.

Here goes

The orts for the month are all from October.

My divine mother, Mata Amritanandamayi, was in Chennai last week - 18th and 19th. It is 2 years since she visited Chennai. So, do I need to mention the joy that we all felt?!

 The 2 days were total bliss, showered in total unconditional love. Every darshan from Amma leaves us totally energized and recharged. Now, am dragging myself back to reality.

October is really dragging. I picked it up after nearly 10 days last night!! There's just the border at the bottom left to complete. So, thought of showing a picture of the completed October.

Now, that was a very quick update wasn't it. Till next time, Take care.. Be happy.. Keep stitching.. Au Revoir

April is done

And now it's time to display April, though a week late. V did warn me when I completed March "Amma, you better complete April as well, or you'd have to cram in the last minute", and that's precisely what happened. With my brother and family down for a holiday, I totally missed April and realized after V went on about April fool on the 1st!!

So, here it is.

I found these lovely trimmings last week during a trip to our crafts supplies store with V. Thought the beaded one would suit April perfectly, and it did.

I also bought V her first long stitch kit. I forgot to take a picture of it, but it's a simple starter one by anchor. She's super thrilled.

That's it from me today. Till next time.. Take Care.. Be happy. Keep stitching.. Au Revior

October and some baking

I've been on a baking spree lately. Especially, ever since I found the 6-min chocolate cake recipe. This time I used that recipe to make some Tiramisu

And that's a slice of the cake

 Finally, I got the consistency of beating the fresh cream right and was able to get the soft peaks. The recipe I used did not call for the lady fingers, so this is a different Tiramisu, but yummy all the same :) The recipe is from here. She has a whole lot of other eggless recipes as well.

My niece turned 2 on 20th. I baked a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting for that.

The cake itself turned out pretty dense. That was because I used half oats and half flour. Also, I substituted the orange juice with milk. So, there was nothing to make the cake light there. This was my first attempt with cream cheese frosting, and am quite happy with how it turned out. I used cream cheese and whipped cream for this. As summer is setting in, the frosting started running by the time we got half the cake covered. So, I ran into an air-conditioned room and completed the remaining.

I am half way through October cottage.

I think I might need to frog out part of the wall (the portion that I have marked with an oval), as the color of the thread really blends in with the fabric. That part is actually stitched, but can't see the stitches there, can you?

Meanwhile, Dr.Flu decided to pay me a visit and has taken my vocal cords for a break. Have been sick ever since last Wednesday, with a bad throat. The fever is gone, but I still have a very bad cough. This is not allowing me to stitch at all. So, no stitching has happened since last Wednesday.

That's my update for the week dear friends.
Till next time.. Take care.. Be happy.. Keep stitching.. Au Revoir

March TUSAL and so much more

That's right, there's soo much to share with you all today. Let me start with the TUSAL for the month

 

All of the orts are from the cottages, mostly from September and a little bit of October.

I did quite some cooking over the weekend. Tried making veggie pasta in tomato sauce.

I added some mint leaves for some flavor. The family loved it.

One of my friends had shared this recipe of a 6-minute chocolate cake sometime back. As I had this terrible chocolate craving during the weekend and wanted something quick, decided to try this

And the result was surprisingly great. The texture was I think the best of all my cakes so far. I think from now this is going to be recipe am going to use for a chocolate cake. I also chopped some chocolate and added it in for some extra chocolatey flavor. The recipe is from here

The oven is acting up again!! Strangely the microwave portion is not working, but the convection is. So I managed to bake the cake during the weekend. I think we are just going to ditch this and get a new one. I say friends, never buy an IFB product. The after-sales service is pathetic. We logged a ticket for this oven last Friday, and the technician has not turned up till today. This is not the first time this is happening.

As I said during my last post, I bought a few tools to facilitate the stitching. A floor stand, an easel with magnetic chart holder and a cooling rack for the baking.

I mounted the fabric for October in this first, but later found that the sharp edges were damaging the tender jobelan. So, I removed the fabric from there and went back to my q-snaps. Do you have some tips on how to use this? How can I avoid the fabric from being damaged?

Oh and that's the material for November and December

And now to show you all the September finish

Doesn't it look beautiful. I have also started working on October now. I can't wait to finish all the cottages and start working on the shells now. V made a comment "Amma, by the time you finish the shells I would have finished school"!!! So, no way am going to let that come true.

That's it from me now friends. Till next time.. Take care.. Be happy.. Keep Stitching.. Au Revoir