Yippie... I don't have to rush to office today cause I have taken three days off for studying. I am so out of practise that it is quite a task to wrap my brains around the course material. In between whiling away time, I try and do some serious study. But my mind keeps drifting and I try pulling it back to the book.
Today morning I have a juice made out of Broccoli and Grapes. It doesn't taste bad.
I have some jamuns and half a guava for the mid-morning snack. Lunch today is something my mother used to make during each Ram Navmi. We call it Pachadi. I know pachadi means different things in different languages. But we used to call a coarsely ground soaked chana dal (my mother used moong dal as it is healthier) mixed with grated raw mango pachadi. In Marathi it is also called Ambe dal or vatli dal and this is made in the month of Chaitra when you get raw mangoes in abundance
My Mother's Pachadi Recipe
Ingredients:
1 katori yellow moong dal soaked for 6-8 hours
Raw mango - grated - 1/4 katori
salt
Jaggery (my mother used to add a tsp of sugar but I am adding jaggery as I am not allowed sugar)
Coriander
1 green chili
For garnishing:
1-2 tsp oil
Red Kashmiri Chilli
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
a pinch of asafoetida (hing)
some curry leaves
Method:
Coarsely grind the soaked moong dal (or chana dal if you prefer it). Add the grated raw mango to it. Grind the salt, jaggery and chilli in the mixer and add this paste to the above mix. Add some chopped coriander to this. Then you can season it by heating the oil...adding the mustard seeds till they sputter, hing, curry leaves and red chili. Mix well.
I also have a helping of Sol Kadhi and aamras with it.
In the evening I have 1 katori of Bhadang and some pani puri pani with the sweet chutney. I have this at around 6. I have a really bad lower abdominal cramp at around 8 pm so much so that I am writhing in pain. I do not know what this is. Is it that I ate something wrong or had wrong combinations of food that have caused gas... I am clueless as this is a condition I am not used to :( But the pain subsides after about 15-20 minutes and I get back to studying. The taxing of my brain makes me famished by 10. I make myself poha in sweet coconut milk. The experiment is quite successful. For accompaniment I have cucumber sticks with the Rajkot chutney.
The Travelling Foodie's Sweet Poha Recipe
Ingredients:
Soaked Mota Poha
1 big Katori Coconut Milk
Jaggery to taste
Salt to Taste
Some cardamom powder for flavour
Method:
Wash and drain the poha. It swells up in about five minutes. Add the jaggery to the coconut milk and mix well. Add the salt and cardamom and then add the poha and enjoy this chilled. It is really soothing.
With me trying to contain all that I read in the tiny room of my brain and with the hope that it doesn't gush out in the middle of the night, I decide to drop curtains on Day 16.