EXPERIMENTS IN THE KITCHEN

At the time when I got married I knew how to boil water .... I mean exactly how to boil water. Other than that , I had a long way to go. Had it not been the support from my jethani i would have been sent back to ..well back to momma to learn something other than boiling water. I somehow hated all the cooking business. " Why do people waste their sooooo precious time in COOKING" was exactly my thought . The time which used to get spent in cooking can be utilized in so many productive ways ( cooking was definitely not a productive chore). It was always we both ( jethani and I) getting up at approx 5:30 am and entering the kitchen to begin our long extensive menu preparation for the day ( breakfast , lunch and dinner). We prepared all the three meals together at one go because we both were working at that time ( I quit recently) and none of us would be back by 5:30 pm. Only fresh rotis were prepared at 7:00 pm or the timing had to be adjusted in such a way that the first roti came off the tawa ( the griddle) at 7:30 pm dot. I did learn few things from my jethani but that was out of sheer pressure and not out of interest. These were my initial days , later I had joined Axis Bank and things became much worse. I detested coming to kitchen because I came back home at around 8:00 pm and the "ME" time was getting reduced tremendously. After that I became the fortunate mother of twins in the year 2007 and i had to manage the twenty four hours properly into a demanding job, a joint family, my two beautiful babies, my husband ( i always fall short of adjectives when it is time to describe him) and ME. For the next six years what followed was a mayhem of unkempt home, dissatisfied in-laws, neglected kids, all the more neglected husband and a DEAD ME. " How can women write recipes asking one another and to top it , go home and actually cook what they have scribbled " . I despised cooking to the core. In between I did get a sudden spike of interest in baking and so my husband ( lovable, adorable, dutiful, peace loving) got me an OTG. I did bake two cakes and a batch of cookies. Then suddenly it became too tedious and boring for me. By this time I had automatically learn t to cook biryani. This dish did come automatically because i had accompanied my jethani in cooking this awesome dish umpteen times . It just got registered in the memory. I think even if I get Alzheimer, i will certainly remember how to cook a biryani.  So all said and done I quit my job due to many reasons in the year 2013 and now I am a full time homemaker or better still housemother. Not in my wildest dreams I would have thought that I , Shaima Shamim would become crazy about cooking new dishes and trying out all possible understandable recipes from the Internet. My OTG is in full use . Not only I bake cakes, muffins and cookies in them, I also bake paneer, cauliflower, potatoes. I am a big fan of everything which requires baking. I never knew this side of mine. I still sometimes smile by myself that I am actually liking this whole cooking business. Gone are the days when I used to cook just because I had to feed people in my home ..Today I cook because I want people to relish what I prepared. I cook from my heart and soul. 

I thought why not put all the experiments be it good or bad in an ongoing post. So I am going to start uploading pics of what I make in the kitchen . Nope, there will be no recipes...the Internet is full of them . This is just to keep in memories what I love just as we keep pics of our kids and pets.....

NUTELLA FILLED COOKIE

This one I recently prepared and My kids just loved it. It really came out well but as the name in the recipe says, cookie. This turned out to be more like a cake. Have it with a bit of actual Nutella by the side and you will be in heaven.

MATHRI

This is the famous mathri which my family loves. It has cumin seeds and pepper powder and the healthy wheat too in half proportion. But do not make the mistake of considering this as healthy just because it is baked, it has half cup oil..........boo hooo half cup of oil. I also had put a little more salt in it so it was not so liked by all.

CHOCOLATE CAKE

The specialty of this cake is that it has no eggs and no butter......HEALTHY????? NOOOOOO
It has 1/4th cup oil....yippeeeee. If you think about your waistline, don't eat cakes....I have sprinkled some icing sugar on top for that glamour. 

RED VELVET CAKE

  See this cake, this is supposed to be "Red Velvet cake with Vanilla frosting" . The cake was uhmmm salty , i dont know how, i dont have the slightest clue. For the first time Faris told me "Yeh cake bilkul nahin kha sakte". Yes for the first time, I had to throw the cake in the dustbin, my heart, my love. Though the icing was fantastic , I could have licked the entire preparation. This cake was my BIGGEST DISASTER. The pic on the right looks good though.

KULCHAS

The very same day I made the above monster , I also made this delicacy , the Kulcha. It turned out to be very soft and tasty. Actually I wanted to make Naan but then after reading the recipe, I felt it would be a bit tedious and lengthy so switched on to this easier version. Now I personally feel it is very similar to Normal maida ka paratha of course but a little variation here and there. My both the kids enjoyed it and I was a happy mother at the end .