Samosa Monster

Mannu's assorted photos

2010-04-11T21:43:00.000-07:00

Here are some of Mannu's photos from his day to day life

Mannu and Sasha

So soft

Soooo soft

In the playground with Mommy

Love my mommy

Mannu and daddy

Whee! I can slide all day

Mannu was a baby once and used to eat on highchair. No highchair anymore

Now I sit on the chair and eat waffles all by myself

Trying to blow out candles on 3rd birthday

3rd birthday

Looking cute in my vest

Getting messy with jam

More messy

Fire truck

Slide

Daddy and Mannu

Mommy and Mannu

2009 halloween - Ninja costume

Everybody loves kung fu fighting..

Schoolbus. going to Buzz aldrin

Daddy's birthday - June 2009. That's Baba (daddy's daddy) and Ami (Daddy's mommy).His name is Ashok. Her name is Seema

Ami, Baba and Mannu

DC national zoo, Mannu, daddy, ami and baba

Ami caught Mannu

Sasha loves Mannu since he was a baby. Here she is watching over him

Sasha watching Mannu

This is when we realized Mannu was autistic. He made this spontaneously without any instruction. We left him in his room and 20 mins later found him working with this

Looking upto Daddy

Mannu, mommy and daddy

Nico and Sasha having a nap

Kitty cuddles

Latest pictures

Swimming, swimming

in the swimming hole

days are hot, days are cold

in the swimming hole

side stroke, back stroke

fancy diving too....Daddy is right outside the frame, but you can see he feels comfortable enough to leave daddy

Berry coffee cake

2010-01-03T22:50:00.000-08:00

I made this coffee cake using the same berries as in the Berry compote recipe. Instant hit with the family. We finished about 1/3 of it already. This recipe is basically adapted from another Berry coffee cake recipe from the Bread Bible. There were few changes that I wanted to do

a) I want to put fresh fruit, and I want to be able to taste the texture of the fruit:- so I want whole fresh berries in the cake
b) the fruit shouldn't change the texture of the cake:- the problem with putting whole berries in any cake is that while the cake bakes, the berries explode while the cake is baking. So, this changes the consistency of the cake around the explosion, which makes that part soggy. Usually, it's fine. You just bake it a little longer, but the other parts are dry
c) I want to put lots and lots of fruit:- The problem with increasing the fruit is again more uncontrolled liquid seeping from the fruit into the cake, which makes it more soggy

Recipe is after the jump, but if you aren't bored yet, here's a somewhat technical explanation on how I got all of this done

So, to solve that problem, I had to take the juice out of the fruit without changing the texture of the fruit and also soften the fruit before it goes in so it doesn't explode. Sure, I could have just mashed the berries to extract the juice, but that would have changes the texture of the fruit too much. Besides, I have never tried to juice strawberries. Instead, I used a process called maceration. No, I didn't make the fruit dance and sing "Hey Macerena!" Maceration is a process by which you soften the texture of the fruit using it own's juices. You coat the fruit with sugar and put it in a wire mesh. The sugar sucks the juice out of the fruit and the juice gets filtered by the wire mesh. The process needs time and temperature to work. If your fruit is right out of the fridge , it will take longer than if it was at room temp.

One cup blueberries

One cup blackberries

One cup strawberries

Dice the strawberries so that they are almost the same size as blueberries. Mix all the berries together, along with 2 cups of sugar

Please note that is a stainless steel bowl which is non-reactive. DO not use copper or iron bowls since the fruit juice can leech metal from the bowl into the food

Mix the sugar so it coats the fruit well. Put the entire mixture in a wire mesh. This essentially starts the maceration of the fruit. It will take anywhere between 30 mins to 2 hrs depending on how cold the fruit is. Allow the fruit to macerate while we prepare the other steps. Just keep mixing the fruit once in a while so that trapped juice has a chance to fall through. Here are the photos showing the maceration process

After 10 minutes. You can see that the sugar is already dissolving in the juice that is seeping out

Not much juice collected after 10 mins. The process is just starting. Please note I didn't do anything to the fruit besides mix it with sugar. didn't press it or squeeze it

After 1 hr

Ooo we collecting some juice now

After 2 hrs. You can actually see the fruit get smaller

The juice after 2hrs. You can't see it, but the sugar has gone into the juice and it has the consistency of syrup. You might have to mix the sugar and juice together. You can use this syrup for anything, including pouring it over your waffles, or thickening the compote you made with left over berries. I am going to use this syrup in the dough for the coffee cake, though, so I can

This time, just so there are differrent textures in the fruit, I took dried blueberries and freeze dried blueberries and mixed it with the berries. So, macerated blueberries, dried blueberries and freeze dried blueberries are all blueberries but they taste slightly differrent from each other. I just wanted to add another dimension of flavors in the mix.

Dried blueberries available from Costco. I would call these as blueberry raisins

Freeze dried blueberries from Trader Joe's

Mix em all together, and keep the berries on the side

Now, we will make the cake dough, and then assemble the cake dough with the berries and bake the whole thing

Beat 2 eggs
Why did the baker get arrested? For beating eggs and whipping the cream *Nyuk* *Nyuk* *Nyuk*

Melt 8tbsp(1 stick) of butter
I love the smell of melted butter in the morning. Smells like victory
And don;t use margarine. Margarine is not butter. It's a chemical that looks like butter. Margarine won't bake your baked goods. Trust me, I have tried to make "low-fat" versions of cakes

One cup of buttermilk
All the fun of butter with the convinience of milk

Buttermilk is very important. Don't try to cheat and mix yogurt and milk. Also, it has to be the acidic kind of buttermilk, not chaas. Buttermilk is what gives coffee cake it's soft texture. If you don't have buttermilk, take 1 cup of milk and add 1 tsp of lemon juice to it

Mix the juice syrup, eggs, buttermilk and butter together
Little tip:- if the butter is hot, mix the butter with the buttermilk and the syrup first. Don't add hot butter to egg directly, otherwise, the butter will fry the egg and it will turn into scrambled eggs

Mix 3 1/2 ups flour, 2tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/4 tsp salt

Mix the dry and wet ingredients together. The mixture should be fairly wet and thick. See the spoon sitting on top. It should be thick because it has to take the weight of the fruit.

Take a springform pan and coat it with butter. Put half of the dough in the pan. Make sure you spread it around so it covers the bottom of the pan

Put the fruit on top. Make sure it;s evenly spread

Put the rest of the dough on top. Spread it around so it covers the fruit
Bake at 375

Tada!! Bake till a toothpick pushed inside comes out clean. It took about 40 mins this time

Let the cake sit for atleast 15 more minutes. Baked goods continue cooking for some time after you remove them from the oven. You have to wait 15 mins to complete that process
After 15 mins, remove the springform pan, flip and place on plate. We are ready to eat

First slice. See how the cake around the fruit is proper consistency. See how the bread has expanded to grab the fruit in intself. Even though the fruit has become more mushy it keeps it's basic texture. See the amount of fruit. This is atleast double the fruit specified in the original recipe form Bed bath & beyond

The only problem is the fruit is not centered in places. THis is because I put too much dough in the first layer and too little in the second layer

Berry Compote

2010-01-03T20:10:00.000-08:00

A Compote is a dish made by by boiling fruit in sweetened water. This dish can be made with almost any fruit, and is quite easy to make. The dish preserves the natural flavor of the fruit used, so it can be served whenever you serve fruit. It is usually served along with pancakes, waffles, but can accompany almost any baked good. My wife sometimes has compote with just bread, and I like to put to replace the Jelly in a Peanut-Butter-Jelly sandwich with compote. This dish is also good for extending the life of fruit that is starting to go bad. You got some good fruit that no one is eating, just throw them all together and make something different. You can mix any types of fruit in there (and even add dried fruit if you wish) Depending on what kinds of fruit you put in, the different flavors can blend together to create a refreshing new taste.

Since, the amount of sweetness in the fruit changes from fruit to fruit and season to season, you are not guaranteed to get the same flavor everytime you make a compote. That's why I tend not to get too concerned about measurements when I make compote.

Recipe after the jump

What you need is

Half cup sugar
If you note, it's really more than half a cup of sugar. I didn't even realize that until I saw the photo. That's because a) I was sloppy about measuring and b) the berries are a bit tart. You have to adjust the amount of sugar based on your own taste, and the the natural sweetness of the fruit, which changes from fruit to fruit, and month to month. Also, there is no need to be exact. Just go with the flow. The beauty of home-made compote is that it allows the chef's hand to express itself. You don't want your compotes to taste the same everytime. You might as well get some jam from the store. Let your hand do the measuring, not your head. Just use your head to double-check your hand

One cup water
Again not exact. Let my hand measure it.
The amount of water changes from fruit to fruit too. Most fruit release their own juices when boiled. So, you need surprisingly less amount of water. To start with you need enough water to dissolve the sugar. Use more water if you are going to use hard fruit that need more boiling (for eg:- pineapples)

Assorted fruit, washed and diced
I have blueberries, blackberries and strawberries, all bought from Trader Joe's. You can use any fruit you want. The only thing is that since, you want your compote to have an even texture, you have to cut the fruit so they are equally sized. So, here, since blueberries were the smallest fruit, I diced the blackberries and the strawberries to be same size as the blue berries

Now, before we start boiling the fruit, arrange the fruit in order of how hard the fruit is. You want all the fruit to be of similar consistency in the compote, so you will add the hardest fruit first, and the softest fruit last. In my case, strawberries are firmer than blueberries and blackberries, but strawberries have high water content (~90%), so they disintegerate quite fast. So, I am going to add strawberries first, and then the other berries as soon as the strawberries become squishy. Here goes. It's pretty easy from now on

Boil water and sugar on high until dissolved
Please note that my utensil is stainless steel. If you are cooking sugar and fruit, please please do not use copper or iron pots. Please cook in non-reactive utensils. The acid in the fruit can react with metal and leech metal into the compote. Not only will this make the compote taste bad, it can even make you sick

Add strawberries

Boil on medium

until strawberry is squishy

Add the other berries and keep boiling on medium
Don't get worried about the white thing skimming on top. It's a natural part of fruit. You have to keep boiling until it is a) thick enough and b) the fruit is cooked enough. Now, the thickness and consistency of fruit is matter of individual taste. The main thing that you need to look out for is don't burn the fruit. Initially, you can let it boil, but once you start smelling the fruit, keep stirring so the fruit doesn't stick to the bottom. If it's sticking too often, you are about to overcook it:- take it off the fire and stop cooking.

Liquids are tricky. Water becomes more watery when it's hot. So, you might be looking at this thing boiling away, and at boiling temp, it may not look thick, but it may thicken when it cools down. What I do, is after stirring the boiling compote, I let most of the liquid back in the pot, but I keep some on the spoon. I hold the spoon in the air for a few secs and then I check the consistency. That gives me an idea. Also, I turn the spoon around, if the liquid is clinging to the back of the spoon, it's very close. Determining when to stop cooking is an acquired skill. If you are making this for the first time, it's better to err on the side of getting more thick, as long as you don;t burn it. Compote as long as it's thick and not burnt is good

Also, it isa good time to taste the compote when you are checking for consistency. A note about tasting:- Wash your tasting spoon after tasting. Tasting a dish and putting the spoon back is just yucky.

Set it to cool
Look at that color!! I mean look at it. I didn't add any coloring. That's the fruit doing it's magic!

Refrigerate once it's at room temperature
See how it stuck to the sides as it cooled down. That's perfect. Again look at the color against the side of the bowl. It's like a translucent blood red.

Sunday morning musings

2009-12-13T10:28:00.000-08:00

Why do multiple bulbs burn out at the same time? It seems like if bulbs that came from the same box, and were put in the socket together burn out within days of each other. Are there bulb gremlins in my house? Or are the bulbs made so precisely that they fail exactly together

Why does my kid jump on my stomach? It hurts. Why don't I feel like stopping him? Is it karma for jumping on my parent's stomach? Is this why I have a big belly? Is his son going to jump on him? Are we stuck in an endless cycle of being jumped on by our kids? Is this hell? Why does it feel like heaven?

The temperature inside the house is 68 F. The temperature outside is 35 F. Windows are made of glass. There is a 33F differrence between the outside and inside of each window pane. Does the glass contract on the outside? Does the glass curve? Why doesn't it break? At what temperature will it break? Surely there is someone who has tested the glass to check at what temperature it will shatter.