Wordless wednesday

I was going to give up on this Wordless wednesday posts I started doing last week. Why? Because Its been ages I did any clicking around (shame on me) and I thought there would be a lot of pressure on me every wednesday! I mean I have no interesting pics to post. I have a lot of good old ones, but I have already posted them either on flickr or facebook. Anyways, found a pic I like hidden in the archives of my hard disk. Dont think I have posted it anywhere..

Title:
Face yourself!!



About the pic: That is my camera, Nikon D80 you are seeing in the pic. I had just bought a remote for the camera and was trying it out. Location: the bathroom of my apartment!! (what! I dont have a mirror outside the bathroom..what to do!! ). Anyways, I have broken my promise to keep this wednesday wordless.

Adventures in the kitchen!

Guilty as charged for not having cooked for three days in a row and having eaten junk food all the three days, the cook in me suddenly rose and put up a protest yesterday evening, and finally succeeded in dragging me to the kitchen. And I am glad that I listened to that cook and did not protest back, because in about half an hour I was rewarded with a fork licking dinner!!

So, ladizz and gentlemen, presenting to you today's special: pasta a la colorful!!

Ok, ignore the name, but i must warn you that this recipe I tried out yesterday for dinner was hugely successful and widely appreciated... by me of course!! Anyways, I decided to cook something grand, but what I ended up cooking is super easy, super healthy and super yummy. Killer combination, I think :) And more than the taste I loved the varied colors in the pasta. A feast for the eyes as well. I got out my camera and clicked some pics as well. Anyways, without further ado, here is what I did:

For the pasta sauce:
3 ripe tomatoes
few sweet baby tomatoes, halved
1 small sweet bell pepper
a bunch of basil.. the more the better
4-5 cloves garlic (i used more coz i love garlic)
freshly crushed pepper
salt
some red wine vinegar (opt)
1 tb olive oil

Cut tomatoes finely and put them in a bowl. Cut the peppers finely and send them off to give company to the tomatoes. Finely chop the garlic, chiffonade the basil and add them to the bowl. If you like your pasta tangy, as I do, add about 2-3 teaspoons of red wine vinegar (I am thinking lemon or any other vinegar will do as well). Add the pepper, salt, olive oil and give all this a good mix. Cover it, and let it sit in the refrigerator for sometime. It is important to use fresh, high quality tomatoes and basil as they are the main ingredients. I generally buy my groceries at the farmers market here, and so the quality and taste is a LOT better than what you get at walmart and other grocery stores.

Pasta sauce:


Meanwhile, I cut up some zucchini and yellow squash I had and coated it with little olive oil, garlic and pepper. Broil it till the veggies turn little brown and crisp. I also added some green peppers and baby tomatoes. (though, I wouldn't broil the tomatoes the next time... I think the baby tomatoes taste better raw than grilled.) . Once grilled, let the veggies cool down a little bit and then sprinkle a little salt over them. I did not add any salt while grilling as the veggies ooze out water and become soft, which I don't like.

Cut veggies ready to be grilled:


Also, Put a pot of water to boil and cook some spaghetti in it, as per the box instructions. Once done, drain and keep aside. Now mix the cooked pasta in the prepared pasta sauce, topped with some fresh cut basil, more crushed pepper (and cheese if you like). Serve with grilled veggies on the side. Mixing the veggies in the pasta will make them soggy, so I prefer them on the side.


Once you do this, well, what are you waiting for, sink the fork in the pasta and tuck in :).

Wordless Wednesday

To bring some color to my blog, I have decided to do this wordless Wednesday thingie, that apparently is quite popular in the blog world. As the name suggests, all I have to do is post a snap every wednesday (this explains adding color to my blog ;) ). Anyways, every week I am going to try and post something I have not posted before on my flickr photostream or on facebook or anywhere else. So here goes, the first snap in the wordless wednesday series: (I admit, this is not exactly a "wordless" wednesday post, but shall strictly be wordless from next week. promise.

Amazing nature

I have been wanting to write about my experiences during the Alaska trip, ever since i got back. But as they say, some of your best moments are private!! And so will my experience during this week long trip will be.. private. Well, almost. Apart from the snaps I have already shared!!
In the snap below: This was written on one of the boards inside the Denali national park. The lines below describe best, what you feel when you see those high mountains..everywhere. If you notice the time of sunrise and sunset, it is quite fascinating, because of the sunset at midnight (And believe me, the sun never actually sets completely in summer. The one week i was there, we did not see darkness!! )





That Wonderful World of high mountains,
Dazzling in their rock and ice,
Acts as a catalyst.
It suggests the Infinite,
But it is not infinite.
The heights only give us what we ourselves bring them!!
-Lucien Devies.

humor me, not

A friend of mine recently sent out a mail to our entire engineering class telling us about his decision of getting married in a few months. While I already knew about this news months back, some of my classmates did not know, and so there was a lot of teasing and leg pulling going on and I was laughing and in general feeling happy reading all the mails and the replies, when one e-mail just put me off. One guy, xyz, mailed the entire group congratulating the would-be-dulha and commented that "aur ek bakra bali chadh gaya". Now i read this mail 2 days back, and still cant erase this sentence from my mind. True, it was said in (good?) humor and in the flow and this guy didnt even imagine that this would piss anyone off, but it really pissed me off.
How can this sentence "aur ek bakra bali chadh gaya" be true, even in humor, when statistically there are greater number of women 'unhappy' in marriage, greater number of women 'abused' (physically/emotionally) in marriage and greater number of women filing for divorces in a marriage?!! This is the condition, i know of, in India atleast. So why make such comments that someone is being a bali ka bakra, or bali ki bakri by marrying?! It pains me even to hear such jokes. I wish i could go cool my head somewhere. :|

I do not break stereotypes.. I am just who i am !!

Stereotypes.. I am pretty sure all of us must have done something just because it was stereotypical, and most of the times we might have broken , or at least tried to break the stereotypes... not because they are stereotypes, but just because you simply cannot get yourself to follow them.
So, in dearth of any interesting writing material, I forced a tag on myself, picked up from Richa's blog. I found this tag interesting. And the moment i read it, I could think of a list of things I have done that does not fit the stereotype of a 'girl' .
Well, I am not fond of breaking stereotypes, but I am fond of doing things i like. And it so happens that the things i like, most often do not fit in the things that girls generally do. Following is the list:

1) I absolutely HATE makeup. I guess the only time i was forced into using it was during my wedding . I thought i looked like a clown :( and felt extremely uncomfortable under the layers of cosmetic products. The makeup lady got the shock of her life when i told her that at 26, i have never used makeup :|

2) Something that just struck me... I don't own a purse/hand bag. not even one. I have never used it. I find it extremely inconvenient, as it is very impractical to carry my camera (which accompanies me most of the times), or my books/laptop to work. I find the combination of a wallet+backpack more convenient and comfortable.

3) My walk, I have been told resembles a person who is on a rampage, with the intention of doing serious damage to anyone that stands in the way. Well, i exaggerate, but you get the point, no?


4) I have been in fights with guys.. a LOT when i was young, and a few fist fights when I grew up. Ok, these grown up fights were all in good humor, but they were 'hatha payi' for sure!!

5) I absolutely love to handle gadgets and i feel I am actually good at that (there i go..blowing my own trumpet ;) ). Be it using a hammer/drill or handling a camera.. I feel a sense of pride that I can assemble the most complex of ikea stuff easily when some of my guy friends actually crib about assembling it. I know its not rocket science, but it makes me happy that i can do it very easily! (Ikea is this furniture store where you get furniture in its dismantled portable state and you have to assemble it using the stuff provided) And moreover, I love assembling/dismantling stuff. I do the household mechanical jobs myself .. like fixing the drain, or a short circuit or a broken window. A few months back, I single handedly did all the lighting of our garden for my wedding reception. I was actually fixing the wiring and the sockets a couple of hours before the reception, when i was supposed to be getting ready!! I love handling machines..be it driving a car or driving a nail in the wall. Period.

6) I love photography... I don't know if its a guy thing, but I don't know of any girl (other than a few ones online) in my friend circle who loves clicking around. So I am putting this point.

7) I travel light. Most of the times, its just my back pack and that's about it.

8) I dress in a way that is generally typical of guys... wrinkled jeans and t shirts being common. Not that I try to wear them often.. but just that i find them very comfortable.

9) Im not very fond of shopping. I hate to shop, especially for clothes. In fact im not very fond of the shopping malls here. They make me claustrophobic.

10) I am messy.. I am absolutely not proud of it... But i seriously dont feel the need to keep the place neat and sparkling (ah well... who am i kidding.. i am lazy.. there i said it. That the main reason ;))... I mean I wont object to living in a clean house, but you would rarely find me keeping the house clean. Again.. working hard on trying to change this habit.

11) I am not sure if this is a stereotype or not, but nightflier pointed out recently that there are very few girl coders.. So that's another thing i like to do.. I like electronics, and coding and my job, which requires me to do both.

So that it! that's my list. Though I do have some qualities that are stereotypical of girls.. I love chocolates , absolutely love mushy flicks and the Jane Austen type books/movies. I do like occasional cooking of complicated recipes (though i never guarantee their success), and i am fussy about my hair :|

So go ahead and take up the tag.. girls and guys alike!