All of Diyas, Mithai, Parties, Friends n Family at Diwali

Diwali is always special...... We meet up with friends relative and most of all.... do loads of fun stuff with Daksayani.... :)

We made this really colourful rangoli outside the house......

Soon we were joined by the neighbour's kids, Simran and Armaan...... We did both the traditional hard work way and the easy short cut way of using stencils....

Then in the evening we went for puja to Mall rd.... it was such a sublime atmosphere.....

My totally fav person in the WWW....... whole wide world......

That's Poser INC at Mall rd.... Sadhika, Neha Didi, Nikhil, Veena didi, Ciona, Mini Didi and Mala Chachi.

The kids had a total blast Ciona and Gunjan.....

The parshad for Diwali was made by my soul partner for desserts, Vibha, we even dream the same stufffffffff..... Cooking for over 300+ people..... It was just so so so so yummy that I still can't stop droolllllling over the yummy pasta......

There was fusilli pasta[loaded with Olived n Mushrooms..... my absolute favs.....],The sauce was smooth, tangy and had just the right amt of spice..... Chocolate Eclair from Modern Bazzar and chips....... her spice mix was the show stealer.... yeah I did sneak some for later.... .

The Hyderabad Diwali was brighter this time with chetan arround in India after so long..... Grandparents had lovely time with Nivritti and Chetan.

Partied with the office gang aswell...... The party's theme was 'Tauba Tera Jalwa'.... and what 'J-A-L-W-A' there was.... so much that it's censored on my blog..... what happens at the party, stays at the party..... ;)

The rangoli's made by both teams in office were fantastic..... so much hard work... all made worthwhile by the twinkled eyes which were full of wonder looking at these......

That's Rozy[part of the 99acres sales team] getting the 'We Value You' award at work.... Then there's Amit n Bhaskar [My Product team], n Gunjan our energetic party animal n Amrita[Amit's wife]

We got back Diya shaped mithai as parshad from babaji in Mall rd...... They looked so pretty and were totally d-e-l-i-s-h.... Am not a great fan of mithai but these..... They were out of the world......

Diwali, The festival of lights.......

Celebration Tiramisu for Vivek*2

Both the Vivek's decide to have parties[Vivekji from Durbar for his promotion and Vivek from work for Diwali] and I offered to make dessert... What's it going to be..... Has to be Tiramisu cause that's what I've been tripping over for the last few days......

What's there in it not to repeat...... Loads of Coffee..... Loads of Rum in the form of Rum Soaked Raisins...... Topped with decadent Chocolate....

Luxurious Mascarpone cream..... Whipped into clouds of B-L-I-S-S.....
Make the luscious pastry using any of these recipes You Know.... It's For YOU, Tiramisu..., Chocolate Tiramisu ~ Amrita's Birthday, Cappuccino Tiramisu Cheesecake for Baking Queen ~ Deeba's Birthday. Make Chocolate Ganache.

What I have is a kitchen full of Vanilla Sponge, Coffee, Rum n Chocolate..... how can I resist myself from eating it all before completing the desserts.....

Super Congratulations are in order for Vivek ji for his promotion.....

Vivek[from office] loves his alcohol so upped the rum soaked raisin in his bowl n made a martini glass as decoration.

Vivek's wife Pushpanjali is such a gracious host who let me potter around in her kitchen.... :) Yashna n I had a blast making pasta while the others played cards... ;)
Verdict:
Vivek ji: Mummy aapka desert party ka oasis tha n u looked beautiful....

Vibha: Hey! N thanks to u for such awesome dessert man! It was perfectly done n u excelled yourself totally! Your being there made the party fun :)

Madame you have totally taken the cake this time! Ur dessert wuz simply purrfect, the rite sweetness, body, silkiness.. I ve bin pigging on it today n hv bi sittin n appreciating all day..

Sorry to put u on such a high, .) but both my sisters have totally freaked on ur dessert wch i call choc tiramisu, n they think its the best that they've ever eaten! Now that u r an established best in the field, i hv prasad on diwali. Do u want to do the dessert on totally professional basis? I thot better to ask u before i explore my next choices.. By the way, the food critic is also at work.. In ur dessert u ve to reduce the quantity of rum n spice it with little tini mini sugar n sm cinnamon. Rite now, the overpowering taste is taking away the sinful pleasure.. Which has to come subtly and gradually, not as a bolt in ur mouth..

The dessert was a major hit with gunjan n all the other darbaris who came yesterday.. Ran short.. Got polished off in 5 secs flat!

Swati Longia:
Thank you !! :* heaven on earth....

Thank You Vibha... Total Gratitude... Orange Cookies

What better way to thank someone than to make them 'Orange Cookies' :)
Made these Orange Cookies topped with Chocolate Ganache for Vibha and the kids.... Had made Haroun n the Sea of Stories , Hoopoe Lemon Cake for Vibha....She is a total treasure. Have done cakes for her kids, Chocolate Blackout Cake for Tarini and a football cake for Karan.

She sent across a book for me...... I was over the moon... How thoughtful of her... :)

Have been watching Nigella's shows for a while now.... A Nigella recipe which I tried was To Die for 'Banana Chocochip Muffins' and then went on to make these as parshad too with a different garnish and filling at a huge scale[almost 300 people over a weekend] Banana Walnut Chocochip Muffins.

Watching her show was a 'Sign' when I was so nervous about the Chocolate Pavlovas n Mango Mascarpone Mousse for the Daring Baker Challange last time.


Thank you so much for all the encouragement, Vibha.....

So readers, what's your encouragement story?

Green Thai Curry, Coriander Rice and Chocolate Cherry Trifle for Parshad By Vibha

That's Vibha.. She's this really cool mom[of 2, Karan and Tarini] who has an awesome career as a lawyer along with being one of the most amazing people I know. She and Vivekji[her husband] give me some hope that being married may make sense and add value to my life ;)
Had done a birthday cake for her earlier 'Haroun n the Sea of Stories Inspires Vibha's Hoopoe Lemon Cake'.

It was Vibha's turn to make parshad as courts are closed for holidays. Making parshad yourself instead of ordering from a shop calls for a lot of determination and coming together of the whole family as a unit and some times friends aswell depending on the complexity of the dishes selected.


Gunjan had a total field day... There were her 2 favourites 'chips' and 'chocolate' looking dessert.... She was freaking out with the parshad, playing with Poonam aunty's Seahorse keychain and I was freaking out clicking her and the antics she would do after eating chocolate... :)
Vibha's Thai Curry
(The quantities in all recipes aren't water tight as this was done for 300 people. Pl use your discretion where-ever quantities are not mentioned)
Ingredients:
Readymade Green Thai Curry Paste [can make it yourself too but advisable to purchase when cooking for 300 helpings from a home kitchen]

Vegetable of your choice chopped:
Aubergines
Broccoli
Mushrooms,
Carrots
Zucchini

Currry Paste:
Groudnut oil
Onion
Galagal
Cocunut cream

Flavours:
Red full chillies
Green chillies
Basil leaves
Salt to taste

Method:
Dice white small aubergines, broccoli, mushrooms, carrots zucchini n othher vegetables.
Make a paste of onion n galagal n roast it in 2 teasps of groudnut oil.
Add the vegetables, carrots. [Slow softening ones first and the rest n stir fry till crisp but soft].
Add one large spoon of readymade green thai curry paste.
Add red full chillies, green chillies, basil leaves n salt t taste.
Finally add coconut cream or milk and water to desired consistency. [I like it medium thick.]
Simmer fr 5-7 mins.

Vibha's Coriander Rice:
Boil rice.
In a wok heat Peanut Oil.
Add finely chopped garlic n galagal.
Add a little garlic n chilli paste.
Stir fry the rice with lots of finely chopped green coriander.


Vibha's Trifle:
Ingredients:
Chocolate Cake - [Store bought as 300 cups were to be made in 2 days.]

Cherry Jam/Preserve -
2 cups of Cherries
half cup sugar
half cup rum

Chocolate Fudge -
2 cups of Dark Cooking Chocolate
1 cup of Milk
1 cup Sugar
half cup Butter
half cup Sugar

For the Cream layer -
half cup of Milk
half cup of Sugar
A pod of Vanilla or half tsp of vanilla extract
500ml of fresh but well refrigerated Heavy Cream
100 ml of cherry jam/preserve[Prepared in this recipe]
2 teaspoons of Gelatin

Method:
Cherry Jam/Preserve -
Split cherries in half, pit them and soak em overnite with sugar n dark rum.
After 24 hours,cook it in the juices till it starts becoming a sticky cherry jam/preserve.
Cool to room temperature.

For chocolate fudge -
Take dark chocolate, milk, butter n sugar in a pan. Bring all ingredients to boil and cook on medium fire till it becomes homogeneous.
Cool to room temperature.

For the Cream layer -
In a pan take milk n sugar, and heat it with vanilla till a single boil. Cool the mixture.
Mix cherry jam/preserve, heavy cream and add the cooled milk mix in it.
Soften gelatin by letting it stand mixed for 5 - 10min in a small bowl of water.
Whip the cream alone with an electric mixer, n then whip the whole mix.
After whipping make sure there are no big bubbles are formed while whiping.
Add gelatin and Mix well.

Assembly:
Line the bottom of your setting bowls with a thick slice of dark chocolate cake.
Layer it with the pitted cherries.
Refrigerating for at least 30 mins.
Pour cream mix n top with chocolate fudge n cherries.
Then refrigerate at least fr 4 hrs.
Serve cool.


Gunjan and Jayanti had a blast with the Trifle pudding and left the rice and curry for the mummies.... But mummies being mummies... They ensure the kids eat the rice and veggies too :)

Verdict:
The rice and curry was flavoured just right... served in amazing quantities for about 300 people. That's a lot of hard work.
The Trifle was presented very well and held it's own right till late in the evening despite the extremely hot weather conditions.
Amazing packaging. Total Thumbs up :)

A BIG thanks to Vibha, Vivekji, Tarini, Amani and Karan for the yummiest parshad.

Haroun n the Sea of Stories Inspires Vibha's Hoopoe Lemon Cake

Cake is "Khattam-Shud"

Vibha is a very good friend of mine. She's started a book-club in mall rd where all the kids[mostly in school] would read a book page by page and discuss it.... I'd be hanging around.... books n kids in 1 place has me drawn as fast as a magnet :)

They began reading 'Haroun n the Sea of Stories' written by Salman Rushdie.... Pleasures of re-reading a book which I've read as a kid are infinite..... this is the 3rd time I read the book.... The first time round when my uncle gave me this book.... after the first 40 pages put it away as too confusing [guess I was too young to understand "Processes Too Complicated To Explain"], after 2 years when I went back to Mumbai... picked up again n lapped it up... It's so engrossing that it was finished in 1 night without a break..... The third now when I'm close to 'The age that I am".... not that you all are gonna get the magic number from me.... :)

Coming back to the book.... Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea Stories shows a depressed professional storyteller Rashid and his adolescent son Haroun traveling to Earth's second, invisible moon, where all stories are born. They foil the poisoning of the Ocean of the Streams of Story and rescue a kidnapped Princess, get back the father's gift of gab, and see their family reunited.

Don't want to give any spoilers here, so I'll just intrigue you even more by introducing the characters[Sourced from wikipedia]..... I loved the names they have in the book along with the fantastic locations... Like Valley of K, "a sad city, the saddest of cities, a city so ruinously sad it had forgotten its name", Tunnel of I, Satellite of the Earth's, named Kahani and so on...

Haroun: The main character/central consciousness of the story. A young, curious, courageous, outspoken child. He is said to suffer throughout most of the story from a form of attention-deficit disorder, under whose influence he is unable to concentrate his attention for a longer measurement of time than eleven minutes.

Rashid: Haroun's father, also known as the Shah of Blah and the Ocean of Notions for his ability to create fascinating stories impromptu. He is a professional storyteller who is sometimes hired by corrupt politicians to persuade constituents that they should be re-elected. His attachment to his wife and to his practice of storytelling are probably his greatest psychological weaknesses; when either is lost, he becomes depressed and loses the other.

To recover the latter, he travels to Kahani by a means known as 'Rapture', by which he is able to travel inside his dreams and wake up in the world the dream has created. This method consists of consuming "moonberries, comet's tails, planet rings, [and] primordial soup". Having reached Kahani, he alerts the Guppees to the location of their Princess Batcheat and later joins their army to recapture her from the Chupwalas who have captured her.

Soraya: Rashid's wife, who tires of his imagination and leaves him for the dull and dreary Mr. Sengupta, a neighbor.

Mr. Sengupta: The dreary man who is Haroun's neighbor, and who elopes with Soraya

Miss Oneeta: Mr. Sengupta's obese, talkative, self-important, overwhelmingly emotional, generous wife, who is so disappointed in her husband after he takes Soraya and leaves the city wherein they live that she disowns him and her married name.

Plentimaw Fish: Large, sharklike Angelfish living in the waters near Gup, which is built on several islands. The name is derived from their multiplicity of mouths, through which they constantly ingest the stories conveyed by the waters. Inside their bodies, the stories are then mixed, producing new stories that join the canon of all the stories ever told. Plentimaw Fish mate for life and always travel in pairs, which then speak in rhyme.

The two Plentimaw Fish present in the story, Goopy and Bagha, travel with Haroun, Iff, Butt, and Mali (see below) to the Source of Stories, but are overwhelmed by the pollution and must stay behind the others. After the climax, they are appointed leaders of their species.

Mali: A 'Floating Gardener' composed of interwoven flowering vines and water plants that behave as a single organism. He is one of many, whose task is to prevent stories from becoming irretrievably convoluted and to cut away weeds that grow on the Ocean's surface.

Butt the Hoopoe: A machine in the form of a Hoopoe who becomes Haroun's steed in Kahani. He is revealed to possess a mechanical brain which is capable of almost all known mental feats, including telepathy. The latter is used throughout his role, producing a recurrent joke wherein his spoken lines are followed by the statement that he "spoke without moving [his] beak". This ability also appears in scenes wherein he replies to Haroun's unspoken thoughts, which sometimes move in synchronity with the narration.

He is shown to be capable of flying at impossible speeds, travelling between Earth and Kahani, and answering to any name preferred by his rider. Because he shares with Mr. Butt the idiosyncrasy of saying "but but but" at the beginning of sentences, in addition to some superficial details of appearance, he is called by the same name. At his introduction, he is described as "the bird that leads all other birds through many dangerous places to their ultimate goal".

Iff: A "water genie" from Kahani who accompanies Haroun in Kahani. Iff's task is to control Rashid's supply of imagination, which appears in the form of waters transmitted to Rashid via an invisible faucet by a means that is never revealed, but which is called a "P2C2E - Process Too Complicated To Explain".

Prince Bolo: A possible parody of the archetypal awe-inspiring hero or Prince Charming, Bolo is the fiancée of Princess Batcheat (see below) and the only person to believe that she is a beauty. Bolo is a reckless, slightly stupid, melodramatic figure who is nominally the leader of the charge to rescue the captured Batcheat from Chup

Princess Batcheat: A damsel in distress. Batcheat is the daughter of King Chattergy, ruler of Gup, and the fiancée of Prince Bolo, whose affiliations are unknown. She is somewhat foolish; romantic; reckless; and completely infatuated with Bolo, who is the only person to think her beautiful; all other characters have low opinions of her nose, teeth, and singing voice.

The Eggheads: Originally a derogative name for an enthusiast in some subject, the term here describes the technicians of Kahani, who are white-coated, completely bald, enthusiastic, cheerful, and intelligent. The Eggheads of Gup City are said to be the inventors of all "Processes Too Complicated To Explain", by which impossible feats such as Kahani's bizarre orbit, the creation of artificial happy endings for stories, and the transmission of "story water" to Earthly storytellers are easily accomplished. They are quite in awe of their superintendent, the Walrus, for his possession of a moustache.

Walrus: The superintendent of the Eggheads, distinguished from them by his possession of a small moustache which gives him his name.

General Kitab: Literally "General Book". General Kitab is the commander of the Guppee 'Library', which functions in peacetime as a system of aides and in war as an army. It consists of a multitude of Pages, each of which is a thin person clad in an oversized sheet of paper bearing part of a story.

King Chattergy: Princess Batcheat's father and Prince Bolo's father-in-law, a symbolic figure who forms the nominal head of Gup's government but has little real power.

Blabbermouth: A Women Page of the Library of Gup. Blabbermouth is a talkative, ill-tempered, contemptuous, stubborn, unscrupulous, quarrelsome girl who despises Princess Batcheat, disguises herself as a boy, and is skilled at the art of juggling, which Haroun compares to storytelling.

Mudra: Second-in-command to Khattam-Shud, who becomes disgruntled with his master's policies and defects to the Guppee side. His shadow, like the shadows of each and every person in Chup, can behave independently of himself and is therefore his sidekick.

Mudra himself is an able warrior skilled in the art of hand-to-hand combat. Mudra is nearly mute, being able only to communicate his own name and the fact that he "speaks" by means of Abhinaya, a type of sign language used in classical Indian dance.

Bezaban: Literally "without a tongue", this is the name of the ice statue located atop the Citadel of Chup, where it symbolizes Khattam-Shud's power. It is used as an object of worship by the Cult of Silence. Later, Bezaban is melted and collapses onto Khattam-Shud, killing him under its weight.

Khattam-Shud: The villain of the story, whose name means "completely finished". He represents silence, and is therefore said to be invoked at the termination of every story told. As a character, he is the "Prince of Silence and the Foe of Speech" feared by most Guppees. He is the ruler of Chup and the founder of a religion whose supreme commandment is abstinence from speech.These things are all ultimately destroyed when Haroun uses a substance called "wishwater" to turn Kahani around, so that Chup is illuminated by sunlight.

So the cake has a Black South pole with the poisoned sea of stories and the wishwater is made of lemon sauce.

This Hoopoe is my labour of love born out of Deeba's technique of making cake borders... I just had to try it... Word of caution... pl don't try this method with any intricate design till you've gotten the hang of doing it else you'll end up tearing your hair out like i did and have to re-do the whole design..... I totally enjoyed the challenge this posed... :)

The Lemon Cake's recipe is the one I made for Shuchi, This time round I marbled the cake with various colours to make the Sea of Stories...

Vibha is a total treasure. Have done cakes for her kids, Chocolate Blackout Cake for Tarini and a football cake for Karan.

So readers have you had any strong association with books and food?