Soulful Creations

I know I have NOT cooked anything for the past two months, I mean literally for 2 months somehow have survived. Now that my defense is over, I intend to get back to some fun stuff.. oh god I have so many new recipes to try (have bookmarked from all my favorite blogs out there) New recipes, new designs for jewelry, my half-done scrap booking experiments so on and so forth

So the first time I saw this recipe, I knew I wanted to try it. This recipe is modified from the original one found in "Betty Crocker's- easy everyday vegetarian". Spaghetti and spicy rice balls 1 pkg (16oz) whole wheat spaghetti 1 1/2 cups cooked brown rice 1/2 cup quick-cooking oats 1 bunch spring onion, roughly chopped 1/4 cup unseasoned bread crumbs 1/4 cup milk 1 tbsp fresh parsley 1 tbsp dried oregano (fresh would be great) 1/2 tsp red chilli powder 1 egg, beaten 1/2 cup wheat germ vegetable oil salt and pepper to taste store bought tomato pasta sauce (I used the entire bottle!) 1. Cook, drain spaghetti 2. In a medium bowl, mix rice, oats, bread crumbs, spring onion, milk, herbs, chilli powder and egg. Add salt and pepper to taste (When I cooked the rice, I added salt and pepper). Shape the mixture; coat the rice balls with wheat germ 3. In a medium skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Cook rice balls in it, until light golden brown. 4. Heat pasta sauce

Less is more appeals a lot to me. In my mind, less ingredients is less cooking time and hence perfect on those days when I don't feel like preparing elaborate meals, which is actually most days!!! Here is a very simple recipe from Kalyn's Kitchen that I modified to include a few more veggies. I love this recipe- I love all the veggies that go into it and I am a big fan of sesame seeds Roasted Broccoli, snap peas and baby corn- Abi's style 2 broccoli heads- florets cut from the stem a handful of baby corn 1 cup snap peas cut in halves Soy sauce, 2tbsp Sesame oil- 2tbsp Salt and pepper to taste Toasted sesame seeds for garnish Preheat the oven to 450F. Mix the veggies, soy sauce, oil, salt and pepper in a bowl and spread it on a baking dish. Place the dish in the oven- after about 15minutes, take it out and turn once. 15min later you have delicious roasted veggies. Garnish with sesame seeds Have fun roasting

My scrape with jewelry making began when an undergraduate in the lab wore earrings that she had made, her mistake- telling me that jewelry making is easy! Well it might be easy but definitely not a hobby that can be sustained on a grad student salary. Somehow I have been keeping it up- although I now am trying out new territories of jewelry making, the one thing I sort of cannot do is color coordination, so it takes an unimaginable amount of time to create one piece of jewelry. But I am hoping some of these creations of mine would fetch me some moolah to keep up with this pursuit. Just to show off- Turqoise magic and cool gal's cool blue

So, after toying with whether or not I should write a food/ craft related blog, I finally decided to give it a shot! I love most of the food blogs- gives me tons of recipes to try out. When I first began to cook, I thought I would be terrible at it- but I have come to realize that amidst some terrible palate decisions, there are some amazing ones too! I really like the idea of a monthly blog patrol coz I surely have a lot of recipes to try out from different blogs. I have decided to submit this recipe from Archana's Kitchen for the MBP- street food . Lot of fond memories are associated with street food, so I thought it would be a nice start. My dad who still travels a lot gave me a list of foods that he has devoured on the streets of many cities Indian and foreign. These chillas were not on his list though! Dal chillas (since I used 4 different kinds) What went in it 1 cup yellow moong dal 1/4 cup urad dal ( I mixed in some urad dal with skin and some green moong dal ) 2 cups