Diabetic Diet Chart

Diabetic diet chart for a starter like me, would require much convincing and inspiration. Here goes my first attempt to renunciation....

Diwali Meal

We had a lovely Diwali meal. There was a good variety of food to make everyone happy. We took plenty of pictures as it was the first Diwali for the little one with her new friend. The house was well decorated and we lit a nice scented candle. There where decorative stones and flowers. The table with the food looked gorgeous. Kudos to the chefs who had done the food for all of us. There was plenty of sweet lemon juice and mixed fruit juice. Bengali sweets shar bhaja, malai chamcham, and rasmalai for dessert was yummy.



Palak with sweet corn and some fried gobi on top



Tarka daal




Chicken

Pea pullow

Some pics from the pot lunch

These are pictures from the pot lunch my friend had at work. The chicken biryan is made by me. They sent some potatoes made with poppy seeds (khus khus) called alu-posto in Bengal, back for me as a return treat. They had a variety of food. There was this lovely salad, mutton from 16 Ballygunge Place, chicken Biryani, chicken bhuna, , parathas, cauliflower, alu-posto, loads of Bengali sweets, and misti doi (sweet yogurt).

Experience with Fish

Well! Today for the first time in my life, I went to buy fish from the fish section in Spencer's. I have lived in Kolkata for the past 20 years and have never been to buy fish myself. In fact I have never cooked fish. What an amazing experience it has been to buy fish, to cook fish, and to enjoy it with some rice.

I had wanted to buy fish that would have big bones. This would be useful for my son who eats with a fork and a spoon. Keeping this in mind I had enquired and was told that Rohu or Katla would be the fish I should buy. Once in the fish section at Spencer's, with a big smile I enquired if they had any katla fish. My question was a giveaway to the fact that I was a first time buyer. I was told that it is better to buy a portion from a huge Rohu. There was another buyer who knew how to buy fish. She confidently told me that the bigger Rohu would taste good. To start with I thought that it was a good idea to buy only a kilogram of the fish.

I had no idea about the cooking process. I will have to go find out the recipe, cooking time, and then try  cooking the fish. Well my consultant was kind enough to repeat the recipe and the entire cooking process twice for me. With this information I started my trial and error method of making Rohu for dinner. Wash the fish properly and then marinate the fish was the starting point of my exciting day. To marinate the fish I used some turmeric, salt, lemon juice, ginger paste, and garlic paste. After marinating the fish for half an hour it was time to fry the fish.

To fry the fish I thought it would be nice to use some rice bran oil. Rice bran oil can give the fish a unique flavor. Then I shallow fried all the fish. The fish would splutter at times and I had some oil on my arm. However the enthusiasm to continue with the fish remained. Then I fried grated onions, ginger, garlic, and chopped tomatoes. As rice bran oil had taken my fancy for the day,  I continued to use the same. On other days I would have used olive oil. Once the onion, ginger, garlic, and tomato paste was well fried, I added some water into this. In went some cloves, cardamoms, and some cumin powder. Then the fish was put into the gravy and the kadai covered with a lid, for the gravy to enter into the fish making it soft. Yepee in some 40 minutes the fish gravy was done. My son was very excited to try out mummy's fish in gravy with some rice.

This has been a wonderful and different evening!