Written test for CA driving license - my experience

This one is completely different from the usual posts that i publish which exhibit my culinary skills or the hobby of painting. All i am gonna write here is about the "written test" which i took today for obtaining the permit for driving in California.

I am a post graduate and its a shame to tell that i failed.... Just by a couple of questions. And i was sure that i will fail, when i was waiting in the queue to get my paper assessed! What a shameless creature i am - You must be wondering. But i dont feel ashamed at all :))

I do feel sad, for just one thing - my hubby took a 3 hour permission from his work, just to take this silly gurl to the DMV office and get her permit done. I am sure to hit the 2nd time right. You hear me hubby? I WILL DO IT. :)

I am writing this post to help other people like me, who want to take up the written test. This is how i prepared myself. I collected "CA driver's license" handbook from library, 5 sets of question papers from my friends; read the hand book till page # 36 and could not go further because of my laziness, solved all of the papers 3 times; In addition i also took up the online tests that are available in the website. There were around 5 tests. I though I am well prepared for the exam. But alas, i was wrong.

All I want to tell people is that solving papers alone would not matter. They come just handy, to know how the questions are framed. In fact, you WILL have to go through the handbook. Read it thoroughly at least once. The written test papers have questions in different forms for the same answer and this is where most of them go wrong. In my point of view, i failed to mark the best of the 3 answers, cos, to most queries, all 3 choices held good! How sad is that. Now, anyone would get confused to choose. In this case, the evaluation is done based on the best answer.

Now, in spite of being a little disheartened about the fact that i could not pass a simple written test for driving (I dunno how I managed to read those massive books to pass my post graduation, that too at 1 shot!!!), I want to take this failure as a step towards success. I shall write my next post - may it be cooking/painting/anything, only after i pass my written exam.

Wishing myself good luck,
Tc,
N:astro

Zucchini baked - an appetizer

Zucchini - i was always hesitant to use the non-Indian veges, fearing that my hubby will reject right away :(

But he proved me wrong. I could not resist cooking this as an evening snack, with a dip like Guacamole. So, i quickly baked it and in fact i charred it cos, it took more than 20 minutes to be baked. So i simply switched broil button in the oven and got it slightly charred but edible state!!!

Here the recipe is posted for you and my own reference. This is a great appetizer. Great one for calorie conscious people.

Requirements:
1. Zucchini squash - 5
2. Bread crumbs - 1 cup
3. Red chilly flakes - 2 tsp
4. Salt and pepper to taste
5. Oil - 5 tsp

Wash and cut the zucchini into slice of 1/4 inch , so that they do not shrink to nothing when they are baked. Now, take the bread crumb, mix it with salt, chilly flakes and 1 tsp of oil. Pick every slice zucchini and coat it with oil and then dab it on the bread crumb. You can even use butter or cheese for the initial coating on zucchini. Now arrange these in an aluminium foil which is oven proof. Bake it in 400 degree Fahrenheit for 20 minutes and then broil it for just 2-3 minutes. Or if you can wait then bake it for 30-40 minutes, until it turns crispy.

Yet another recipe is on its way,
until then,
tc,
N:astro

Guacamole

Hurray... The first time i have ever got this dip in right taste @ the first shot. The other day, my hubby treated my tongue for a fish taco in wahoo taco. I fell in love with the way they had arranged the taco that was a layered with guacamole, baked fish and taco in the bottom. The palate also included black bean and boiled rice.

I loved that mild dinner and so i was on my way to cook the tastiest dip - Guacamole. It is basically made out of Avocado , which is usually bland.

Simple dip, without any kitchen appliances. All you need is a cutting board and a knife.

requirements:
1. Avocado - 1 (fully ripened)
2. Onion - 1/2 (finely chopped)
3. Lemon - 1/2 (juice extracted)
4. Cilantro / Coriander - 3 tsp (finely chopped)
5. Green chilly - 1 (finely chopped)
6. Salt and pepper to taste

There is always the technique to cut and scoop out avocado. Please watch any video related to it. Scoop out the buttery textured flesh and discard the outer skin and the big seed that it has.
Now, blend it into a soft paste with a spoon. Add all the other ingredients to it and give it a mix...

There you have - right in front of your eyes.... Guacamole... hmmm... delicious... I like it chilled - so chill it before you serve it with either chips or toast or even baked vegetable. I would rather like to eat it with baked zucchini! :)

tc,
N:astro

Dosa with a tangy taste - Tomato Dosa

This one will not keep you waiting for a day or two... For all who thought, Dosa, can never be prepared in a couple of hours' time, this one is for you... You better take back your words. Yes, i told you to take your words back, cos, this one could be dished up in a couple of hours.. You heard me right.

Ill tell you how. Go ahead and soak 2 cups of idli rice (You can use a mixture of 1 cup raw rice and 1 cup idli rice, if you prefer) for 1 hour 30 minutes. During this course of time, collect the rest of the ingredients as given below.

1. Idli rice - 2 cups soaked
2. Tomato - 2 ripened
3. Fennel seeds - 3 tsp
4. Cumin seeds - 3 tsp
5. Salt to taste
6. Coconut - 4 tsp (grated)
7. Red chillies - 6
8. Mustard - 1 tsp (for seasoning)

Grind/Blend the dry items like fennel seeds, cumin seeds, chillies, add tomato and blend again. Now add the soaked rice and blend to a batter consistency. Add required salt. Time to season it with mustard in 2 drops of oil....

All you have to do is make dosa with this batter.... I do not think it needs any accompaniment. It is spicy as it is. Go ahead, why waiting?

tc,
N:astro

chicken tandoori

Who does not love this snack/starter?!

Yep, i did it... My hubby was short of writing a blank check for me! lol...

He was all praise for the dish, cos, he thought i would end up doing the boring yogurt and chilly powder marinade and feed him just that! I found many varieties of kebabs, tandoori and tried this by mixing and matching ingredients!

Ingredients:
1. Chicken - legs - 6
2. Yogurt - 2 scoops
3. Turmeric - 1 pinch
4. Chilly powder - 2 tsp
5. Pepper powder - 2 tsp
6. Onion - preferably shallots(Sambhar onion)- 10
7. Tomato - 1
8. Ginger - 1 inch
9. Garlic - 3 pods
10. Lemon - 1/2 (juice extracted)
11. Mint or coriander - few
12. Salt to taste
13. Cumin seeds - 1 tsp for seasoning

Preparation :
Wash chicken legs, make 2 or 3 slits with a sharp knife and make a marinade with lemon juice, turmeric and little salt. Leave it aside for 30minutes. Restaurants will marinate it for 8 or more hours.... I have no patience at all!

Chop shallots, tomato, garlic and ginger finely. Heat oil in a pan, add cumin seeds, onion, garlic, ginger and tomato and fry them till they turn pinkish brown. Add chilly powder, pepper powder and yogurt... Now, fry this until it becomes a thick gravy that would stick to chicken if applied.

Cool it and apply this to the marinated leg pieces. The slits would help them absorb this gravy. Grease an oven proof foil, with oil, place all the leg pieces and broil this for 10 minutes. Turn it over and broil it again for 10 mins. Now every piece must be fried in the tava with a drop or two of oil.....To give it that extra restaurant flavor....

Enjaaaayyyyyyy chicken kebabs. :))

tc,
N:astro

Fried rice with a splash of non-Indian veges

Fried has been a people's dish, so colorful, so nutritious, yet so humble in its origin and reign....

I decided to chop few non-Indian veges like Bok Choy(Used in Chinese dishes), Zucchini (a type of squash, like cucumber), Jalapeño ( Red paparika family).You can substitute any vege here with anything thats available in your fridge. As i had been to a vege store,this evening, i decided all these veges will go into fried rice for dinner.

This is how to proceed
Ingredients:
1. Cauliflower -5 florets
2. Zucchini - 1
3. Bok choy - 3-4 leaves
4. Carrot - 1
5. Pink cabbage - 5 leaves
6. Onion - 1
7. Ginger - 1 inch
8. Garlic - 3 pods
9. Jalapeños - 1
NOTE: jalapeño is very hot and thus you WILL have to deseed and remove the thin vein that is responsible for the spicy flavor.
10. Pepper powder - 1 tsp
11. Butter - 1 small cube
12. Oil - 2 tsp
13. Salt to taste
14. Soy sauce - 1 tsp
15. Cumin seeds - 1tsp
16. Boiled Rice - 2 cups


Chop all the veges in desired size and shape. Micro wave/Boil carrot, cabbage and cauliflower for 6 minutes. Heat oil and butter in a wok, add cumin seeds and pepper powder. Add ginger, garlic, onion, bokchoy, zucchini, jalapeño and fry them till they are soft; add the boiled vege to it, salt and soy sauce and saute them for a while. Now mix the boiled white rice with this and cook it for 2-3 minutes until the desired consistency is reached. You can either take it off teh fire when it is sticky or let it cook for few more minutes to dry the rice. Anyway, the flavor is retained.

Well accompanied by tomato ketchup or Mint chutney to give an Indian flavor!

tc,
N:astro

Painful Shrimp gravy

I call it painful in its title because, the cleaning part it tedious. Even though i bought them as head off, they have to be shelled, de-veined. This takes almost an hour for a pound of shrimp. And one more factor that makes it more painful is the weight. 1 pound when cleaned & cooked becomes just half of the amount in weight! i...o....

Yet, I took a decision and cooked it up for my hubby. I m not exaggerating the relationship or the love of my life - my hubby, but i am allergic to Shrimp and Crab! I cant even take the smell and taste of it!!!

All said and done, it is always my pleasure to cook different stuff for him, as a loving wife. (If i do not tell such monologues, he might one day, read the blog and beat me up, for not writing anything good about him! ;) he he he)

Here is the simple Shrimp recipe

1. White Shrimp - 1 lb (head off, shelled and de veined).Read further for "How to clean it"
2. Curd - 2 scoops - beaten
3. Onion - 1 - finely chopped
4. Tomato - 1 - finely chopped
5. Pepper powder - 2 tsp
6. Red chilly powder - 2 tsp
7. Green chillies - 4 - slit
8. Turmeric - 1tsp
9. Lemon - 1/2 - juice extracted
10. Salt to taste
11. Coriander or mint leaves

Note : Shrimp should not be cooked for more than 5 minutes, as it becomes rubbery.

How to clean Shrimp: Buy the variety which has its head chopped off. So, its just about peeling its outer shell and de veining it. Peel the shell and its fine legs. Discard them. Now, take a sharp knife, make a shallow cut from one edge to the other, on one side, to find a dirty brown colored vein (Its actually its intestine!), pull the whole thread like thing out, with the help f knife's tip. Also, do the same on the other side of the Shrimp, to find a more bluish colored vein(This one is vein). Remove this one too. Most of the restaurants wont remove all these i guess and keeping it as it is and cooking might make the Shrimp stink! Yes , i mean it.

Method to cook:
Marinate the cleaned Shrimp with beaten curd, turmeric, pepper powder and a bit of salt for about 15 minutes. You can chop the onion/tomatoes during this time.

Now, heat oil in a wok, add mustard, cumin seeds for seasoning, and drop in the chopped onion and slit green chillies.Fry till its soft. add tomatoes and fry until it gets mashed. Now, add chilly powder, salt and half a glass of water. Let it come to boil. Now, add the marinade to this and allow it cook NOT more than 5-6 minutes. You can see the Shrimp turning slightly pink.. Awwww.... what a color it is... Loveeee it... :))

At the final stage, add lemon juice and mint to it for that aroma. Serve hot with white cooked rice or Roti.


Tc,
N:astro

Banana almond cranberry mixture turns cake

Yippee... Its Christmas time.... Its baking time....its time to indulge in sweets... And this is my first Christmas post wedding.. So, its very very special. :))

Christmas has always meant "time to indulge into pastries, cakes, muffins, tarts, pies, puddings, oh... what not?!"

I decided to venture into the ever green banana walnut cake. But you see, its pouring cats and dogs since 4 days in my place and cannot venture out to the grocery store to buy the missing ingredients. And you wanna know what was missing - lo, the walnut was missing! ha ha... I did not even possess baking powder, vanilla or any other essence.

So i decided to throw in some nuts that i could lay my hands on. Also, in the due course of my search, i ended up finding cranberries too! Hurray, a new entry into my cake :D

So, this is what i did on this rainy afternoon.

All you need is
1. 250 gms of All purpose flour(Maida)
2. 250 gms of sugar - can be powdered
3. 2 cardamom for flavor/in place of essence
4. 3 eggs
5. 3 ripened bananas
6. 100ml water
7. a pinch of salt
8. Almond - 1 cup
9. Cranberry - 1 cup
10. 100gms of unsalted Butter

Hey, its Christmas time, you can certainly use 1 cup of dry fruits!

Powder sugar and cardamom, add butter to it and mix well. Beat 3 eggs to fluffy and mix it with sugar, butter & cardamom. Use a fork and mash bananas to a fine paste. Add this into butter mixture. Now, add all purpose flour into the bowl, little by little, trying to blend it until smooth paste is formed. use the cup of water too in it.Now, the batter should be of thick consistency and should not consist any lumps in it.

Add the cranberries and almond and give it a toss. Now, grease the baking pan with a little of butter or cooking oil and pour the batter into it. Pre heat the oven to 350degree Fahrenheit and place this baking dish in it. Bake this for 30 minutes in 350degree Fahrenheit or until the toothpick comes clean from the cake.

Lo, the banana cake/bread is ready.. I m off to eat/hog! :P

Tc,
N:astro

Karuppatti Paniyaram

I tried, tried, tried..... And i finally hit it right.... I did it... Paniyaram!!! lol. My biggest ambition, my biggest challenge in culinary skills was to prepare paniyaram - white or sweet... I made as many attempts as possible to achieve this dish. Here, i finally did it. pat myself... :D

Paniyaram is one dish whose value is not known at all to many, But i m sure, ppl from chettinadu will write their assets in return for a paniyaram. Rather, my hubby will write everything he owns for a "Karupatti Paniyaram"! Its the sweet version of paniyaram.

There is the recipe. It takes more than just the recipe to create it. The consistency, the proportion, the temperature of oil, the sensibility of pouring the batter into the hot oil.ufff and most importantly "Lady luck" should be with you!!!

recipe:
1. Raw rice - 1 cup
2. Udin dal - 5 tsp
3. Jaggery or palm jaggery (Karuppatti) - 1 chunk
4. Oil for deep frying

Soak rice and dal for about 2 hours. Blend them using mixie (I tried using Magic bullet and succeeded in it!) or grinder to idli batter consistency. Now, crush the palm jaggery and add to the batter. The consistency should neither be too watery nor thick as for idli. This i m sure will be reached only by sheer practice and experience. Heat oil in a deep frying pan and pour a ladle of this batter into the hot oil. Now, if you think that u will arrive at the paniyaram as the final product then the moment you pour the batter, it should NOT stick to the bottom of the pan, but slowly rise and float in oil!!! I took enough number of attempts before i reached the correct paniyaram shape! It will be round and be like a flower, where the edges of the paniyaram are a lil crumbled.

Happy paniyaram trials!

Tc,
N:astro

Glorious Avial

Avial is one of the most preferred side dish (for rice, idli, dosa) in Kerala and Tamil Nadu cuisine... But somehow i never liked it at all whne my mom used to cook it for me. :(

Now, after 10 years of hating it, i made up my mind to cook it for my dearest hubby. And lo, it just turned out perfectly. He was all praise for my culinary skills... One main reason for writing all these south Indian recipes in my blog is that, i forget the recipe very soon after cooking and wanna pen it down for further use!!!

Take down avial's ingredients. Its better than a chutni or sambar cos of the number of vegetables that go into its preparation.

Ingredients:
1. Brinjal -2
2. Potato - 1
3. Onion - 1
4. Tomato - 1
5. Lemon - 1/2
6. Drum stick, carrot, beans
7. Coconut - 10 1" pieces or grated coconut 10tsp
8. Green chillies - 6
9. Pepper powder - 1 tsp
10. Mustard - 1 tsp
11. Saunf (aniseed) - 3 tsp
12. Coriander or mint leaves - 2 tsp
13. salt to taste


Chop brinjal, potato, onion, carrot, beans, tomato finely. Heat oil in a wok , allow mustard to splutter. Drop in onion, tomato and fry them till soft. Drop in all the chopped vegetables like brinjal, beans, carrot, drum stick, potato. fry them. Add pepper powder to this.

For the paste:
Coconut, green chillies and saunf will go into the blender to form a thick paste.

Now, add this paste to the cooking veg mixture. Add a glass of water. Allow it to boil for 10 minutes. Now add salt, lemon juice and coriander. Allow it to boil for the next 3-4 minutes. Avial ready to be served. It can be served with idli, dosa.

Tc,
N:astro

Mutter butter Mushroom

This one just took birth when i was testing if i could combine some other vegetable to increase the weight of the already cooked mushroom gravy. It struck me that green peas cans are many in number, not been given even a glance once a week.
I decide that 1 can of it, is gonna go into it.

All i did was used these ingredients to cook up the lemon flavored mutter mushroom with a dollop of butter on it!

Use the following:
1. Mushroom (button ones) - 100 gms
2. Onion -1
3. Tomatoes - 1
4. Ginger garlic paste - 1 tsp (I used fresh ginger and garlic instead)
5. Lemon - 1/2
6. Coriander powder - 2 tsp
7. Chilli powder - 1 tsp (Can add 2 or 3 green chillies if that extra spice is needed)
8. Pepper corns - 5
9. Jeera - 1 tsp
10. Vegetable oil - 2 or 3 tsp
11. Butter - 1 scoop (can sacrifice it, if u think its too heavy)
12. Salt to taste
13. Coriander leaves to garnish
14. Curd - 3 tsp
15. Last but not the least "Green peas" - 200 gms

Chop onion, tomato finely. Heat oil in a wok, throw in jeera and pepper corns. Allow it to splutter. Drop in green chillies, ginger garlic paste. Fry for few secs. Add chopped onion and tomato.
Fry it until they seem to be soft/tender. add chilli and coriander powder, salt and curd and stir it. DONT ADD WATER. drop in the chopped mushroom and green peas( The ones that i used were pre-boiled). Allow it to cook for 10 minutes.

Add lemon juice, butter and garnish with coriander leaves. U can indulge into it with rotis or rice.

See u with yet another recipe that takes my mind by storm.

tc,
N:astro