Happy Diwali & A Happy New Year!

To summarize my Diwali celebrations I can say I visited friends who stay just two buildings away but we still never meet, had a blast at a family party met new people ………. I am revived again.

Well at last all the five items that I had planned to make were done successful including a repeat of chivda. (It was so well done. It was my first attempt and I nailed it.)

So here are the karanjis and rava ladoos. Would you like to have some?

* those karanjis are baked not deep fried.

Chivda (this second batch I made and is already over as I write of it now)

Since Diwali is a festival to revisit friends and families I thought of packing the sweets and savories in neat little take along boxes and gift it to them. Smart right? 

Visited friends, had a family party, felt good, felt social rather I should say felt human and mostly felt festive the most important feeling I was trying to search for this Diwali season.

 

Three down Two to go!

Done with three items of Diwali faral! Yeah!

Shankarpalya done. Check

 

Chivda Done. Check

                                         

I love the chivda it is my mother in laws recipe microwave method and requires only two to three tbsp of oil.

Hopefully people who will be lucky enough to taste them will like them too. 

I am not commenting yet how much did I like them because I always feel that I conjure up the most “happening” stuff in the world. 

So waiting for my best critic my darling husband to taste them and grade them. Keeping fingers cross that he likes them too.

Ironically today's title of the post also suits my weight loss I am 3 pounds down but 37 more to go! (I wish it was 2 to go in this case too)

With all this Diwali sweets and savories at home it is way too difficult to control and watch what you eat. Still I am trying, because my mission of losing 40 pounds is still on.  

Are you feeling the Diwali season in air?

It’s festive season again and God knows I love it! 

But will it be same so far from friends and family this time?

I wish it is…..cause this time it will be celebrated with new friends, newly found family members who were long lost but apparently stay close by and a new country all together.

Well it took some time to dawn upon me that Diwali is just one week away…….as there is no hustle bustle here, no over enthusiastic shoppers creating traffic jams, no glittering paper lanterns of various sizes, colors or shapes in all possible stores and most importantly no over full laxmi road with sea of people to buy new clothes or tulsi baug to get all matching accessories or clay diyas. I miss it all. And I am not just saying it I do miss it.

But of course Diwali fever did hit me, so as soon as I got into the grove of Diwali mode the first thing that came into my mind was new clothes! With some nagging and cajoling which my husband needs a lot these days (even on weekends), so that he moves his a$$ of the work chair and concentrate on me instead of his new love the work laptop, off we went to the nearest mall. 


Shopping time....yeah!

Shopping always cheers me up, and a husband who has opened his purse strings a little more widely than usual I had already reached cloud number nine! Bought a few clothes though they are not my Indian Diwali kind with lots of bling* but they are worth to heighten my spirits for Diwali.

* By watching a lot of crazy T.V. shows here I have learned this word “bling”. Bling means zari work or crystal studs and all.

Now with the mood set in, since it is Diwali the next important thing to do is DIWALI FARAL…..

I have set a time table on what to do and when to do what in faral category.

I aiming to make five things besan ladoo, rawa ladoo, shankarpale, chivda and kanavle (karanji for all non CKP folks).

I am excluding shev and chakali this year. I had made shev last year which turned out good rather very good or shall I put it as “happening” and then I tried making chakali too but chakali had ended being a very soggy and oily affair. And since I am on a weight loss and live healthy and eat healthy streak I am avoiding fried savories.  

So let the Diwali Faral mission begin

One down Four to go......
So out of the five I am one down. Today I made besan ladoo. Not my best, I think I was way too generous using the ghee in it. You can see the pictures they are all tending to sit down under their weight and look like pedhas. But as long as they taste good they are super happening creation by me!

I think they look too dark due to my camera phone and no flash facilities. (And extremely shapeless which I am hoping people will ignore)


Other items are coming up and I will post them up too…….and well my one particular friend is always proud of me and lets her mom know how I changed from being useless to being useful in the kitchen please do show your mom these photos and let her know hope is there in this world. Awesome right!?

Live Life Stronger

Today’s date holds a lot of significance for me. Oct 10^th

Oct 10^th 2008 I kicked my old company which was holding me in a 2 years bond and fled. And started of with a new one 2 days later where I had the most intriguing time of my life.  

Oct 10^th 2011 I want to make it a new historic date in my life and a new beginning. I want to kick my old body in the butt and get myself a new one.  

Most of the frequent blog browsers must be saying “Oh! God please not another weight loss blog by another fat chick”. 

Well I don’t think I can be anyways committed on writing only about “My weight loss” and “My diet plan” and all “My” “My” banter.  

This blog will be about all people who touched my life, the things around, the latest news, the trendiest trends, and I don’t know what.

But since I have started this blog for one main reason that is to be accountable for my actions of eating and sleeping and again eating rather breaking this “eat-sleep” pattern and making a new pattern “watch what you eat-exercise-do something worthwhile-sleep on time” way of life. So I would periodically (as given below) give a general statistics on how good my “old body kick in the butt” action is going on.

Plus the second reason for me indulging into the blog is I miss people in my life since I left my job, unexpectedly moved to US, got stuck in the foul play of H4 visa and now literally have 12hrs of my day alone with myself. I was surrounded by these people 8hrs of my day every single day with whom I used to share my day to day episodes (in full graphical details). They still call it “stories” and are always demanding for more “stories” so may be this could be my way of letting them know more of my “stories” since now I am so far away from them.

Well so the main weekly statistics:

Current weight (10/10/2011) – 170 lbs. (I am huge as a cow) mooooooooo…….

Expectations are:

• Every day go to the gym since it is right below the building (move your ass move your ass!).

• Eat right. No more ice creams and cookies and cheese on everything. (I engulfed to two cupcakes today with the heavy cream frosting on top)

• Lose about 2 -4 lbs. every week.

And anyone and everyone who reads this are allowed to ask me if I did achieve what I am striving for.

So with this kick ass start let us see where I reach………..