now it is a mottai.. I simply could not handle the wet hair post yoga. Started getting migraines last three days. Decided enough was enough. Hair Focus, the salon I have been going to for 18 years is not opening anytime soon.. so this is it.
Jr. the budding nurse, who will have to eventually learn to shave using something like this eventually got some practice ahead of time..
The little one is not looking at me.. San and MIL think I went over the top.. Jr. is happy with her handiwork.
Last weekend I had gone for a grocery run and saw the empty samosa area in the Indian store. They used to have piping hot samosas there all the time.
San or me would always get two samosas from any desi store run.. it was something we both do and it invariably makes the other person happy.. we share it with chai.
When I told my kids how I missed samosas and it has been a long time since we had any, they piled up on me by saying they miss a lot of things like Chipotle too.. so I should shut up and make my own samosas just like how they are making their own mexican food at home!
Samosas are labor intensive and not easy to make on a small scale. Still having been encouraged (challenged if you take it in another way) by some fellow yogis.. decided to make it the weekend project.
there is a lot of ground work required. I got 15 samosas after almost 90 minutes of effort.. guessing you can make 30 of these in 2 hours with same oil.
Ended up with 1/2 the masala leftover which we plan to use to make parathas tomorrow.
Recipe used (scaled everything down to 15 samosas)
1. 3 aaloos (potato) boiled, peeled, mushed
2. 1/2 cup peas
3. one clove garlic (dont need it actually), 1/2 onion (again you can skip this), 1 red chilli, 1 spoon of corriander seeds (dhaniya) - two spoons water and make into a paste.
4. small bunch of cilantro
fry a spoon of jeera (cumin) in two spoons oil and add the paste, then add the cilantro, peas, potato and make the curry.
Separately made the dough with 2 cups all purpose flour and 2 spoons of clarified butter (ghee).. think oil will be okay as well if you are vegan. Let the dough sit for 30 minutes under wrap.
Make the samosas by using water to seal the dough after flattening and filling it with a spoon and a half of the potato masala.
Trick is in the frying. Keep it at medium high to begin with.. after 30 seconds, drop heat to medium low and wait for a good 3-4 minutes before taking the samosas out.. Then set it medium high again, wait for 5 minutes before adding next batch in. The temperature toggling is what takes time.. so it makes sense to do 50 samosas at one time in a large kadai like in the street vendors.. Bihari (our tea shop from college days in Varanasi) used to make 25 at a time in his large kadai.. they would all come with a consistant golden brown color and a smooth texture..
One thing I realized.. the second batch came out with smooth surface like in store samosas simply because the moisture had gone a little bit as they waited. That is one trick I will use next time. That was not mentioned in any video...
there are many recipes that use flour tortillas or pastry sheets to make samosas ... but if you are going to do something..... go for it with all your heart. No short cuts.
The samosas came out very well. The feedback from family "masala is really good. The skin of the samosa is really thick in some places, but taste is really good."
They all liked the second batch better than the first batch.
Had fun doing this.. have allergies thanks to the gardening effort earlier in the day.. so you can hear me sniffling all the time..
Now I am late for yoga class. Fortunately yoga class is only 20 steps away now instead of a 15 minute drive.. and we are on a flexi schedule.
Here is a video of how this was made..
If I can do this, so can you.. so try it from scratch. It is intimidating when you watch all those videos. For a first attempt this came out well !
Not sure how many Star Wars references I have managed to cram into that blog post title...
This is the dairy entry of a hot yoga junkie:
Day 5 of stay in place : In what was yet another attempt to sweat and sweat a lot, progress was made. Ditched the crammed bathroom and restricted movements. Went back to guest room and set up the space heater to "max". It was still luke warm to say the least. Saw my friend Sid's post on the BYSJ group where he was in his bathroom but had a lot more sweat than me.. that got me thinking.. was it because he was still wearing a shirt? So I decide to wear a fleece jacket to force the sweat.
I did sweat a lot more .. but in the jacket. Finally at the end of class two drops of sweat landed on my mat... normally I have two buckets of sweat after class.. calm down I tell myself. Every deluge has to start with a few drops.. I look at those precious two drops and cry.. make that four drops..
My teachers are posting their dialogues as youtube videos. Only problem is the unreliable internet connection at prime time where things start buffering in the middle of the class. I have started recording these in the middle of the night to save them as audio files only. This way the class can go on uniterrupted. Only problem is that there is a loud pinging noise in the middle of holding poses.. Found out that this is the outlook incoming mail notification going through the internal microphone. Matt Newman will have to recite the dialogue to an empty room at midnight for me to record this again.. Last night I actually fell asleep while this was recording.. had set an alarm just in case to wake up after 90 minutes to turn off the recording. Who knew Bikram Yoga dialogues make for good lullabies?!
Had no idea that last Sunday's class would be my last group class. Given everything we know about the virus, we would probably have quarantined ourselves a lot earlier. Good thing is all my friends seem to be doing okay and posting their own solo yoga experiences from crammed bathrooms and other spaces.
Tomorrow will be two years since I stopped drinking water during class. That Mary Jarvis class that changed the water habbit seems ages ago. Last Sunday's yoga class seems ages ago!
I am a social animal of the huggy type. It is not easy to isolate myself, but it is being done. Have been working on a yoga mat all week. It is surreal to be cooped up in a room all day. I see my kids for maybe 5-10 minutes a day. They are on a different time zone within the house. My MIL is still in her own room and watching TV and chatting with friends. We all go for walks one at a time twice a day around the block. The kids have shown no signs of exercising. Perpetually in their beds. I am thinking of going for a family bike ride tomorrow, weather permitting. Things are changing rapidly.. I am the designated shopper for the family. On Monday I made a Costco run at lunch break and this was the situation..
that was one person out one person in with a limit to how many folks who could be inside costco.. but we were all pretty close to each other.. would not call it social distancing... most of the stuff we needed were out of stock.. we do have a lot of cuties.. eating them on a regular basis to get more vitamin C.. which works for colds but not sure if it helps with the new virus..
There are lessons learned in self control, trying to set up the right environments and most importantly hydrating myself. At work we would all walk around between meetings, take a water break, restroom break. At home the meetings just keep coming one after the other.. you cannot just see who is at their desk to go grab the team for an impromptu meeting.. everything has to be scheduled and that means no breaks.
The last two days, I took one hour breaks in the middle of the day to drink water and walk around the block.
The yoga journey continues. Hope we get over the virus soon and get to be in a hot room.. something tells me that this is not going to happen anytime soon... but the community is there and everyone is working on cheering up the others.
