16
December

For the love of paneer

When willy and I started dating, I had never tasted Indian food. I thought curry was that powder that you bought in a jar at the grocery store, and I had no idea what roti, dosas, pakoras, paneer, or a host of other tasty treats were. Oh how things have changed! When we let the lils know that we were going on an adventure to India, Woo’s eyes lit up and he asked me in his serious voice, “does this mean we can eat paneer EVERY DAY?” While it is now a staple in our diet, both here and back home, I should not be surprised that so many people back home don’t know what it is. I am though. How can they be missing out on this tasty treat?!

Simply put, paneer is the Indian version of cottage cheese. It is firmer than Canadian cottage cheese, and not at all sour tasting. While you can easily make it at home by souring hot milk and pressing the curd into a brick, draining the excess whey, it is readily available in Indian grocery stores and now Loblaws back home, and everywhere here. I did make it once, and I now know that I will buy it for the rest of my life.

Paneer is a very versitile food. Since we have been here, we have had it prepared in a multitude of ways. In curries, like mattar (in tomato gravy* with peas), palak (spinach gravy), Makhani (butter and masala gravy); in pakoras and samosas; baked in paratha bread; grilled in a tandoor; in wraps; on pizza; and in lasagne (I made this one, not sure it is available locally). McDonald’s even sell a McPaneer! There are also sweet presentations as well, tho I have not tried them.

My favourite way to eat paneer is mattar paneer, which I made tonight for supper. It takes me a while, but the end result is guaranteed to please us all, so it is worth it.

I fry the paneer til it is just slightly golden

 

 

Add it to some veggies and spices

 

 

And voila!

 

 

It is delicious with some other local specialities…

 

 

Lilbunnyrabbitz mattar paneer
I can’t tell you how long this takes me to make, the lils are always distracting me. About 90 minutes 🙂

1 lb paneer

Curry paste
2 large onions, chopped finely
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tsp ginger paste
1 tsp cumin seeds
3 dried chillies (I omit these if the lils are eating)
1 tsp cardamon seeds (removed from green pods)
4 whole cloves
1 tsp fennel seeds
2 pieces cassia bark (cinnamon also works)

Gravy
8-12 plum tomatoes, skinned and chopped
10 oz tomato paste
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp tumeric
1.5 cups frozen peas
2-3 tablespoons thick plain yogurt
Cilantro leaves (to garnish)

Cut paneer into cubes. Heat a fryin pan with 1 tbsp of vegetable oil and lightly fry cubes. Pat down and set aside.

Make paste. Combine all ingredients BUT the onion in a morter and pestle and grind. Add onion at the end and lightly grind and mix with the spices.

In a large saucepan, cook the paste over medium heat until onions are transparent (about 5 minutes). Add tomatoes and bring to a boil until juice is reduced. Add tomato paste and spices and simmer for about 30 minutes. Add the peas and continue simmering.

About 15 minutes before you want to serve, add the yogurt, stirring well, then add the paneer.

Garnish with cilantro and serve with rice or naan, or both!

*gravy is what sauce is referred to in Indian cuisine

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14
December

Wordless Wednesday – Signs that amused us at the zoo

Assault by monkey

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12
December

Giving back

One of the things that I focussed on during last year’s 25 days of Christmas was giving back to those in need in our community. Several of our activities centred around preparing donations, making the donations, and talking about those who have a much greater need than we do. We feel that it is important that the lils know that there are people who are way less fortunate than they are living right in our city, and we want them to feel that they can and should give back.

This year is very different. It is abundantly clear that there are people that are less fortunate than us in Bangalore. We see it every day, pretty muh the minute that we step outside. While I will continue to support organizations in my home community, I also want us to help those in the community where we are now. The question for me has not been whether to do it, but how to make contributions that actually make a difference. I have been receiving daily emails from one of the ex-pat groups that I belong to, asking for donations or assistance. Sadly none of them have been in a place or time that the lils can contribute, and I want to do more than just give money and tell Woo and Goose about it. I want them to feel like they helped too.

This week I received an email from the school, and a notice came home in the lil’s diaries. It talked of three local institutions that our school was doing a fundraising drive for, and asked if we would help out. Woo read this notice in the car on the way home, and was clearly impacted by the contents. “Did you know that there is a school right near ours where the children have no crayons to draw with? And an older school where they have no dishes to eat on? Or a home where ladies have not toothbrushes?” I originally thought that the school had taught him all of this, but Willy tells me he read the letter several times. He has really focussed on the simple things that are needed, and that makes it a great place to include Woo and Goose. This was exactly the type of activity that I had hoped to build into the Christmas countdown.

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8
December

Night on the town

We knew that our social activities would likely decrease when we moved to Bangalore. For starters, there are no Senators games to attend, no hockey or baseball to play, no weekly #ThursPintsW tweetup, and we really didn’t know anyone to visit when we moved here. One of the biggest hurdles though, is the loss of our babysitting safety net. We no longer have family and friends that we can call on mind the lils, and there is no pool of teenaged children like we had at home. There are a number of nannies available for hire, but we don’t want a nanny, just an occasional babysitter. To prepare myself for this reality, I spent the weeks leading up to the move telling myself that we would not be going out at all while we were here. Just in case.

We haven’t gone out at all in the six weeks since we arrived when I got an email that made me pause. It was from an ex-pat group that I joined and it spoke of a Christmas dinner, the clincher for both of us was that it included the line “there will also be greatly discounted imported wines for purchase on the night” Sold. It was time to find a babysitter.

We briefly joked about asking our friend Carpet, who is staying with us this right now as part of his 8-week world tour, to mind the lils. We really wanted him to come with us, so we talked to our maid. Sheela is great with the lils, and had minded them for short periods while I was setting up the house. It had been our plan to try her out as a regular sitter and this was the perfect opportunity. She said yes, the lils were excited, and we were off!

The evening got off to a rocky start, with it taking Carpet and I almost two hours to get from our house to the restaurant, picking Willy up on the way. It was two hours to travel a distance of nineteen kilometres! Picking Willy up did not add to that time, he met us at the side of the road on the route we had to take. It was all Bangalore traffic! We arrived at the restaurant ready for a glass of wine. We were handed that wine as we walked in, and spent the rest of the evening meeting a few new people, eating delicious food and indulging in copious amounts of the wine. Carpet even won the door prize, a GC for a local restaurant, which he handed to me. We left pretty happy, albeit wineless (their supplier backed out). This needs to happen again, and soon.

I think I like this wine club.

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8
December

Wordless Wednesday – Lal Bagh Gardens

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6
December

The famous Woo

When the lils started school, it was Woo that I worried about.  They were both leaving a very loving and comfortable group, moving to a school where they knew no one.  it was going to be an adjustment for both, but I  thought that Goose would be OK.  She is at an age where she still just floats around.  No one wants to play with her?  She plays alone.  She doesn’t want to play with anyone?  She just sits and watches.  It’s a good age.  Woo, on the other hand, is right where friendship starts to matter.  School aged lils start to notice when the others embrace or reject them, I didn’t know what was going to happen, so I fretted.

It turned out that I did have some concerns with Goosie.  She had a really hard time being away from her brother for the first time ever.  Everyday of the first week of school, she came home and said “no friends today” in this sad little voice.  She started to have problems with drop off, and really didn’t like school for a short time.  We focused our energy on helping her adjust and I stopped worrying about Woo, for the most part.

That is not to say that there weren’t the occasional things that made me raise an eyebrow about Woo’s days.  Times like when he came home and told me about the girl who told him she would only be his friend when no one else was there; the day I saw a boy trying really hard to push him down as they walked up the lane towards me; when he complains that they are the ONLY KIDS IN THE WORLD who have to have a quiet time at home; or when he reported that the teachers had given him the “secret job” of telling when other lils throw toys (because those kids are always the most popular).  Nothing serious, just little things that I watched.

This week it has become clear that things are going well. Woo has one little friend that he is really tight with, a very sweet little boy.  Each day when we arrive, different children either yell hello to him from the second floor balcony of the classroom, or gather excitedly to him in the classroom.  He gleefully tells us of all the friends that he plays with each day.  The teachers all seem to love him, telling me what a kind and considerate boy he is, and many of the parents know him by name as we pass by them.  Then yesterday one of the moms, after being introduced to him, said “Oh! So this is the famous Woo!” I think he is going to be just fine. Although I am a little worried about just what he is famous for…

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5
December

O Christmas Tree

This past Saturday we set off on one our our favourite holiday traditions, the family search for our Christmas tree. I have always loved getting the tree, and some of my favourite Christmas memories are of getting trees with my family as a child. Willy and I have continued the tradition of decorating real trees, and have historically taken the family to precut tree lots. Had we been in Canada this year, we were going to go to a “cut your own lot” for a new twist!

Being new to Bangalore, I didn’t really know where to look for trees. I wasn’t even sure that there would be Christmas trees of any sort available, given that the population is very much non-christian. Happily, there are a number of decorations in the stores, including some fake trees. We were more interested in a little tree that would be kept (alive) in a pot and available for planting at a later date, so we started looking at alternatives to traditional pines. Tops of my list were either a Christmas hibiscus, or a Christmas palm tree. We found what was reported to be a large nursery and set off.

The nursery was actually in the middle of Lal Bagh Gardens, a massive and beautiful park just south of the downtown core. We spent a couple of hours wandering around admiring the trees, flowers, and wildlife. It really is an amazing park that I want to go visit some more. It was about an hour from our house, but we packed a picnic lunch and had a nice time.

The visit concluded with a trip to the nursery. We had two tired lils, but the promise of a Christmas tree perked them up, and soon they were running around and goofing off among the plants. After our first pass, we found some flimsy palms, and no hibiscus trees. I wasn’t sure the palms were going to cut it, so I wandered a little deeper, and found the perfect little tree! It’s about four feet tall, and a smidge Charlie Brown. It has soft, short needles, and branches that will be strong enough to hold whatever we come up with for ornaments. It is a pine, but a more tropical type of pine, one that is seen growing in some places in Bangalore, including one on our street! Near as I can tell, it is a “Cook Pine”, also known as the Christmas tree pine. Fitting.

The lils loved it so much that we needed to get them each smaller versions. So we now have three trees, ready for some decorating. They aren’t quite the tropical tree that I envisioned, but the will do just fine!

 

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1
December

The big countdown

This is the first time that I will have ever spent Christmas outside of Canada, let alone in the tropics. Sure, I have gone south just before and just after Christmas, but this is different. This is the entire Christmas season away from home. I admit that December has snuck up on me somewhat, though I am pretty excited that it is finally here. Not only does this month bring a PILE of family birthdays (mine included!), it brings Christmas too!

It is pretty important to me that the lils experience of India doesn’t leave them feeling like they are missing out, so I have tried to bring traditions with us. One of these traditions it pretty new to us, and it’s all thanks to Andrea from a peek inside the fishbowl. This is the second year that we will be celebrating the countdown to Christmas with a month full of family friendly, holiday themed activities!! Andrea’s family has been doing this for a number of years (though they scaled it back this year), and this is our second year. The idea is a twist on the modern tradition of candy or toy filled advent calendars. I loved the idea as soon as I read the post, and knew that we had to do it. We loved doing it last year.

Given that December snuck up on me, I am the first to admit that we don’t have a full list written out. Part of this is because a number of my items from last year required either snow or more than an insignificant portion of the population actually celebrating Christmas, and the rest is because that is how I role. we did get our first day’s activity in, writing letters to Santa. Well I wrote what the lils dictated. Woo went first, followed by Goose, and here is what they gave me, word for word, with no prompting:

Now we just have to figure out how to get these to Santa in time for the big day!

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30
November

Wordless wednesday – in my garden

Mystery #2

Mystery #1

Hibiscus

Hibiscus

Surprise rose

Bouganvilla

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28
November

This is my dance space

This is my dance space. This is your dance space. I don’t go into yours, you don’t go into mine

It’s one of my favourite lines from the movie Dirty Dancing. Johnny uses it when he is trying to teach Baby to dance, and she keeps “invading” his personal space. It is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, as the two are already lovers, and he seems to be enjoying the fact that Baby can’t respect his dance space. It’s a cute scene and the expression has stuck with me. I have used it a lot, both in seriousness and in jest, when people get a little bit to close to my dance space. Since moving to India, I feel that I now need to come up with a tactful and appropriate variation for the lils.

The first few weeks that we lived here were pretty much all business. We arrived, moved, set up house, and started school and work. We didn’t pay much attention to people around us, and we didn’t do much exploring. As we have become more settled that has changed, and we are starting to go out more and to play in our community. One of our very first outings was on Diwali, and we were somewhat mobbed by a large group of people at one point. They were very happy and celebratory, and just wanted to take pictures, but also touch the lils faces and hair, and hug and kiss them. We were all taken aback, but mostly OK with this. Then it started happening a little bit more on a smaller scale. We were walking at the Nandi Hills, and Goose was scooped up for a picture. We were at the Zoo, and school children kept coming up to Woo and squeezing his cheeks. Every time we walk anywhere, I get asked to stop and pose with the lils, or have them pose with random strangers. It even happens when we are riding our bikes in our neighbourhood.

Last weekend we were at the zoo again for Goose’s birthday. We were having a great day, and the lils were happily roaming the paths from animal to animal. At one point Goose ran from me to Willy and Woo, a distance of about 100m. When she was about halfway there, she went passed a group of women, one of whom grabbed her arm. Goose tried to keep running, but the woman would not let go. I ran up, yelling at her to please let go and to be gentle. When I got to Goose, she was shaken and a little hurt. I picked her up, told the woman that she shouldn’t do that and caught up to the boys. I was a little shaken myself.

That event strikes me as the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Since that time, I have noticed that both lils are newly painfully shy with strangers. Neither will speak to anyone they don’t know and Goose has taken to wearing a hat a lot more in public. It is a hat that she can hid under. They grab our legs and turn away when people talk to them now. Drop-off at school became much more of a struggle, in part because the teachers wait at the gate to get the children safely in the school grounds and off the busy road. This is well meaning, but to the lils, it is just another large group of people they barely know reaching out for them.

Some of these we can work on with the lils. We spoke to the school, came up with a solution that works for both of us, and have no more tears at drop off. We have spent some time letting the lils know that in public, people do this because they are curious, but that that doesn’t mean that the lils have to engage them. I ask that Woo and Goose remain polite, and simply say “no thank you” if they are bothered, or that they tell us so that we can say it. We also tell the people that they have to ask the lils, and if they don’t reply or say no, it has to be respected. The problem is that it isn’t respected. It’s hard enough to get them to pose for MY camera, so I am not going to force the lils to pose for a stranger’s picture. They should just be able to enjoy their India experience without worrying about being pinched, prodded, grabbed, and hugged and kissed. I just have to come up with a catchy way to tell people.

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