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

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