Way Back into Love! - Vodka Pasta

It may sound like a cliché, but still I will go on....! 

Few months before my two years experiment bombed, it was a big failure which was hard for me to assimilate. It was one reason why I took time off to think about restructuring, possible? or should I walk off. Our hate relationship has been going on past two years...... you will be surprised if I say when we started, we had the best time going hand in hand.
After thoughtful discussions, my supervisors and family didn't allow me to walk way, according to them it is a common phase of every phd life. When much required support and action was done, I decided not to walk off rather to stay in the battlefield to fight. After crossing the field 70%, thought it is time either to kill or get killed.

I mustered all courage got back, few longest meetings, diverted tracks with one aim to find best of many ways to move forward leaving the rest back. So all set and done, I have fallen in love with Mr. PhD all over again, cajoling him every day to say I love you, my new mantra to check if it can create any magic? ;)

Yes now  might all think/ask, why on earth did I take this? I have asked that question million times though it has been my passion and still is! 

On a lighter note, PhD is all about Permanent Head Damage yes half done, still 8 more months to go, two manuscripts and one thesis needs to be fixed, then totally damage will be done!

This recipe is from Nigella kitchen. Simple pasta to reach soul on a tired evening. These pictures are taken during mid-winter time, where there were no days without candles. Do enjoy. Catch you all soonish. Chao!

                                                                Exactly me! PhD comics

 

                    *Pic's are again not its best, sunken eyes bad editing apologies!

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My niece who sparkles my day! -WW

From riches to rags - Salmon Soup

After three months of hearty time with mum, present state snoozing alarm, trans-mind, minced words and silence. My lil Ms Sunshine (mum) is back to India and I'm kicked from riches to rags, good time flies fast sigh! Changes and breaks are vital in life, during the time off, experimented quite a lot on food and photography this post is one of those. I heart Finnish salmon soup, the first time I heard about fish in soup, was skeptical how it would be like? it took two years to me to give it a try and no looking back since then.  

One of my wildest wish was to do food photoshoot in snow. After a series of thoughts we decided soup with a fancy idea to capture steam from hot soup. One fine day when weather prediction stated -10 C and mild snow, found it be the best day, since lighting would be perfect and fresh snow will help for clean surface to place the food. We had to get prepared quite a lot, felt like we were going for a picnic as we needed whole lot of stuffs to get the food placed well. Hunt for the location was challenging, mum found one good place, very near to apartment and mainly since it was clean and I could also get the forest view. We got ourselves packed and started the shoot, after 5 minutes I couldn't sense my fingers, God it was hurting, poor mum she helped me quite a lot, in-spite it was extremely cold her. 

It took almost 35 minutes for us to get it done. That's when I thought decided never to try any of my crazy ideas. On brighter side soup was great, Marjut, my Finnish food chef/guru thought me how to cook the soup and she certified it was good! In case you are in search of steam in the picture, chuck it off guys, the soup was frozen the moment it was out in the bowl....brrr! 

Apart from all these, I can't get out of what is happening in Japan, it's extremely sad for the beautiful country. My friends in japan are safe, but we are still devastated seeing all the disaster. Nuclear explosion, radiation leak has been the talk of my department, questions/politics of nuclear research has started? I pray God for the least consequence of radiation leak. The same goes for the heart wrenching earthquake in Christchurch, immediately wrote to Sue, she is fine but she lost her house, horrible! From my previous post, I did learn that we have no control over nature, but my prayer goes to all the brave souls fighting out there, for strength and hope. Amen! 

For more physics behind the radiation leak and earthquake check few links here and here.

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Will hibernate for a month - Black Forest Cake

What's in air? I have no idea whats going around, but yes I'm surrounded by my treasured peoples love 365 days! If you chose today to express yourself, say you love! 

In Finland it is celebrated as friends day, every year it has been fun time with friends, food and yum chocolate cake. This year with mum around, we haven't planned anything special (weather is -25C outside) other than  warm cozy dinner, with some bruschetta, pasta and molten chocolate cakes ;)

Black forest being Papa's and Mama's favorite cake I made sure to bake them. Since there had been many baking and eating we opted for mini version, later thought giga size would have been better! Previous time when the cake was baked during summer I made the jam from fresh cherries, freshness was scintillating, have added the recipe for it below. For this season I chose jam version, luckily got kind of home made version with chunks of cherries and ofcourse a good dollop of rum in it brought the difference. Fresh cream + mascarpone cheese was the highlight and super moist chocolate cake....Bliss!  We relished every slice of it!

This post is for my Mum, Pops and Sis. Mum and Pops,  thanks for bring me into this world, for making me what I'm today and for dealing with your overly demanding girl. To my sis who is top on earth patient and extremely supportive. I love you guys.

Dear ladies and gentlemen, I will be off from blogosphere for about a month, sorry about it. I know maybe I need some courses on time management, sigh! Till then have fun, cook a lot, eat well and stay happy. Will hop in once in a while in your blogs, if not pardon me! Happy Valentine days/Hyvää ystävänpäivä! 

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Mom ka Khana - Chicken Briyani & chilli Chicken

I know I know my blog baby has been sleeping unattended for a while now, I'm left occupied through out with all good warm food right from kitchen, sometime I enjoy warm puries sitting on the kitchen table, can you believe that? Right now I'm like little over grown hamster :D Doesn't actually matter since I will be deaerated as soon mum goes back to India.

We invited Somjai Tero and her mum for Indian lunch, Somjai came with her little princess Aida. Oh my my she is such a darling, very obviously everyone's attention was only towards her. While we were busy eating, everyone had their turns to play and keep her occupied. Baby darling kept us on toe with smile, cry, potty, snuggle and much more. What can I say? Just for couple of hours the whole house was vibrant.

Mum made our typical Sunday special lunch as we do at home, chicken briyani (with coconut milk), chilly chicken, dum aloo, raita and suji ka halwa. This Briyani is very unconvetional type very simple and easy too cook. The whole lot is mum's recipe, hope you guys will enjoy as much as we did....Wish you all a happy weekend  :)

February is heart month, so folks eat healthy, exercise some, no to smoking and have a perfect healthy heart!

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