Trader Joe's Instant 100% Colombian coffee.

Tastes good.

Costco has made me a happy person

Here is why :

Mountain High Low fat plain yogurt in a big tub.

4 baby eggplants in a pack.

2 pack Nanak paneer.

what more do I need to make me happy !!! GO COSTCO !!!!

Spring break is fun.

Last week I was dreading spring break thinking to myself that we have not enrolled the kids in any classes and I have not planned for that vacation but seems like things are going very nicely even without any extracurricular activities or should I say planned activities. I am realizing each day that they ( my kids) don't need planned activities they are just happy being with me. They have started playing more and more with each other and developing that special bond that siblings have. I knew they had the bond but it is so much fun to actually hear them during their pretend play sessions. I am glad I stay at home and I am not missing those special chats that they have with each other. I get to hear them when I am working in the kitchen and I see myself stopping and smiling. I wish I could record all of it and they could stay like this forever. Ah one can only hope !!

conversations at our table

It is so much fun to hear the kids talk now since their vocabularies are expanding. Here is a sample :

Setting : Lunch time eating spaghetti, feeding self.

Kid 1 : Enjoying spaghetti and face covered in sauce.

Kid 2: Your face is a disaster !

I could not stop myself from smiling and thinking what more will I hear ??

New yummy treat finds at Costco

Hello fellow bloggers,

I have been missing from my blog since so many months. I have been plain lazy and there is no excuse for that too. I am going to try and be a regular from now on. So our local costco has been carrying a few things that are really yummy.

1. Cub claws pastry : It is this yummy all natural/no trans fat snack that contains dry apples, dry apricots, dry cranberries, almond extract, vanilla to mention a few of them. Try and tell me how you like them.

2. Melt-o-ways : A flaky/buttery pastry twist filled with raspberry jam and cream cheese. Is your mouth-watering yet.

3. La dolce vita Italian cookie variety pack with two kinds of biscotti( chocolate and cranberry-almond) and wedding kiss cookie and amaretti too.

Sandwich my ishtyle

Hi friends,
I know I have been MIA for quite a bit and I don't know if anyone even reads my post. But at any rate, I made something today that turned out pretty tasty and so I thought of sharing this recipe with all of my bloggy friends. So here goes......

Stuffed toasted sandwiches

Appliance needed: sandwich toaster

Ingredients: 5 medium to large sized red potatoes
3/4 cups frozen peas
3 sprigs of mint (only leaves)
6-8 stalks cilantro
1/4 of green bell pepper
1/4 of a big sweet onion
1/4 cup finely chopped cabbage
11/2 tbsp. oil
butter ( if needed) for spreading on bread before adding the stuffing
salt to taste
sugar to taste
amchur to taste
red chilli powder about 2 tbsp.
11/2 tbsp. garam masala powder
12 slices whole wheat bread


Method:
Boil or pressure cook the potatoes and the peas.
Cook the bell peppers, onions and cabbage in the oil until tender.
Once the potatoes and peas are cooked mash them and add the cooked veggies to it.
Add all the dry spices. taste and it and stuff them between two slices of buttered whole wheat bread and toast it in the sandwich bread. Eat with ketchup or green cilantro chutney or your favorite dipping sauce. Enjoy.

You can add other veggies like corn or green beans or tofu or paneer and pepper jack cheese if you like.

I will post a photo of my creation tomorrow.

Trader Joe's Potato pancakes-traditional latkes

I tried out the Traditional latkes the frozen ones and found out that they are not that great tasting as most of the frozen items that TJs has.

AZODICARBONAMIDE- what is that ??

Seems like a long name of some chemical and here is link to find out more about it ??? And ask yourself if you would like to eat something with this in it. My friend told me about this and I thought everyone should know about this. I have found it in so many whole grain and whole wheat breads that our kids and us eat everyday. I found that some Franz breads do not have it an ingredient but some of them do. You might want to read the label before going out and buying the bread next time. This is not to target one single company that makes bread but to let those companies know that they need to change the recipe.

My heart goes out to all who did not make it today and all those brave souls who are still out there fighting to save the rest

Today is one of the worst days of my life after 9/11. I cannot believe what I saw today on TV. My friend called me tell me what was going on in Mumbai and I wish I could do something about it. Every time something like this happens it shakes my faith in humanity and all the positive thoughts go out the window. Why does the world need so much pain and hatred ?? All the extremism has got to stop. So many people who thought were going home from work or those night-shifters who were starting work did not even have an inkling of the disaster that was about to happen. It is so easy for me to worry about all from so far away but inside my heart I feel like a coward who can do nothing but watch the news and sulk. I have so much guilt over being so far and not being able to do anything about what is going on out there in India ! My prayers are with all of those who didn't make it and to the rest who will make it and most of all to those who are being brave enough to face the situation. We need to have better armor for the police in India. The people who protect us need to be treated better.

Have you heard of BUGALOO ???

For all those who love Robeez, must know about this website. I think they have really good prices and I love those pretty designs for girls and believe me the boys' ones are not so boring either. GO and see it for yourself and right now they are having a 15% off special. I found out about it through grocerymama.com and their website is www.bugalookids.com.

Ikea ornaments as puppets

How about these christmas ornaments that the kids can use to put on their own puppet show ?? I like them ..of course because they are from Ikea!!!!!

HOPE+GRACE+COURAGE=OBAMA

I thought I had the flu yesterday and I was so crabby but I got an OBAMA pill when I heard he had won. I was hoping and I knew it in my heart that he would. I voted for the first time this year and I must say I felt for the first time that it mattered. It was amazing to see him on stage and his speech was so great. I cannot say enough about our new President-elect. I just have really high hopes for him and I am sure the whole country has so many expectations and if we can be patient enough for him to work for the good of all of us and our kids...and help him as much as we can...it will move our country forward.....and be the AMERICA we look hope we could be...I absolutely have that faith.

Welcome to Sajjanpur

I am no movie buff but this is a must-see movie for all desis. It is so well made. I loved it. Check it out when you can...

Just thought of sharing what I found

Here is a pic of the bag that Ikea is selling...I thought it was neat looking and can be reused. the price is too good as well. Picture is from Ikea website.

Flying first class, playing the waiting game and falling

Hello, if there is anyone out there who still reads my blog since I am so insincere about posting. Just been lazy and busy both. So I had planned to take a trip to see my good friend on Friday and its a flight from one end of US to the other. Since we could not get a direct flight we booked a flight from my city to a second city and then to my destination and the date which we wanted was not available for the first lag of my travel so my dear husband upgraded my ticket to first class and boy was I excited that he did. Since I was only going to be gone for 48 hours and without the kids I thought it will be nice to have that time for myself even though I was traveling for the most part. I boarded my flight on time and my first ever journey in First class began. Did you know that the stewardesses are dressed in a different set of clothes in First class than those in EC. Also you are allowed to board first since you are in First class ( you knew that of course) . Then I was served a warm breakfast and I was planning to sleep but was too excited ( like a kid) and I did not. Instead I asked a bunch of nonsensical questions to the stewardess and she knew for sure that this lady has not traveled first class ever in her life before. So instead of sleeping I watched two movies and one of them was ok and one was not so good. But they were free and I could not say no to that. To my luck, my flight reached 10 minutes early and I was happy that I did not have to rush from gate to gate since I only had an hour between flights. But that was all about to end. The moment we touched down I got a call from my dear husband saying that our airline carrier had informed him that my next flight was delayed by an hour and a half. So I thought okay maybe I will have to wait longer than expected. Then I reached the gate and got a call from husband again who told me to ask if there were any other flights that were departing earlier. I asked and she said no. But I got a new flight number from my husband and went to that gate to see if I could get on a standby and they said that I was on number 10 on standby, that done I just saw their screen say that that flight was leaving after my previous (delayed) flight so I wondered if my delayed flight would be delayed too and sure enough it was by another half an hour. In between all this I am keeping my friend and my husband both informed about what is going on. The reason for the delay was MOTHER NATURE since she decided to bring in a tornado into the area I was flying into. So I waited till the flight I was on standby for left. I went to my original gate and saw that it was delayed by another hour and a half. So at this point my friend called me again and said you might need to ask if they could fly me into an airport nearby their place but not the one I was supposed to be on. I asked the gate agent and he said it is all up to you but I would suggest you stay put here in case we start boarding sooner than the posted time. But I wanted to get there soon so I went to customer service and asked and they said it would be three hundred dollars extra. That just put me back to my gate instantly...:) by the time I reached my gate I could see that the departure was delayed again by 45 more minutes so I started to think the bad thoughts that I would either have to spend the night there or at a hotel somewhere if the airline would pay for it ( not that it would happen in this recession). One gentleman asked me where I was going and I told him and he said that his wife was flying to India. So then a couple of other people also started sharing about where they were headed and so on an so forth. I must say that we made quite a group there. The flight time was delayed again by an hour and while all this was happening the Captain came out and announced everything ( which was really nice of him), the gate agent was really nice too. But there was this annoying female voice on the PA system that kept announcing every 15 minutes that there will be no food service on board and we were welcome to bring our own food and drinks. So finally we left after half an hour of the latest delayed time which was about 6 hours later and were told by the captain to keep our cell phones on until we actually took-off. I reached my destination about midnight and even though I was exhausted beyond my imagination I went to my friends place and we talked till 3 in the morning. The next day was busy and the day after that I was leaving for home.

So the day I leave was sunday and I left on time for the airport. My friends' husband dropped me off at the airport. I had done online check-in but need to print out the boarding pass. So off I went to print them at the airline kiosk but all four ( can you believe that ??) were not working so I went and asked one of the airline agent and she said since your screen said "Special handling required" you need to be in this line. So there I stood with my carry on bags. While I was there I noticed that there was a different line for people with no checked bags and I asked the agent lady again that am I supposed to be here and she said yes. But I thought that I should not be here and off I went to go join the other line. The line that I left was so long I thought it might delay me further. Now this was a direct flight and I was so lucky to be on that flight because I did not know how it would impact my trip. So when I was trying to sneak out of the previous line by going under the belt I tripped on something and FELL and it was the worst fall in the last 20 years of my life and I mean it. I just remember trying to balance myself and the next thing I knew I was on the floor with black spots in front of my eyes and me crying, tears falling down my eyes. The next thing I hear is people saying Oh Oh and then I hear this voice that asks me "Are you okay?" and I reply NO with a nod unable to see or speak. Then he asks " Can I help you ?" and I say YES. Then he said will you be able to get up and I say NO finally I could speak but still not see. I really could not see it was like a short blackout and I hear my friend's husband at the back saying what happened and I say I don't know. I was finally able to get up and see if I could walk. It was extremely painful. But he took me to where I was going and I got my boarding pass and he left me near the security check area and asked if I need a wheelchair and me being the brave soul said NO I wish I had said YES...the next few steps through security and my gate were grueling. If there is thing called punishing thy self I was guilty of it when I said no to the wheelchair offer. The moment I reached my gate my knee was swollen and I could feel it rubbing on my jean. I pulled out my ziploc bag ( coz I don't carry a toiletry bag all thanks to TSA) and thanked myself for putting Ibuprofen in it. I took all of the Ibuprofen I had ( 4 tablets-200 mg each) and thought to myself what was the hurry ??? how did I fall ??? I don't know but I did and because of that I won't be able to take my daughter to her summer camp and I will miss my tennis lesson. Yesterday I went to the doctor and he said the knee cap took the brunt of the fall and so there is some blood underneath it and will take two weeks to heal. The X-ray shows no fracture (phew!!!!) and I am still getting around the house limping but it feels good to know that there is no serious damage. So all that joy that I felt flying first class was followed by a lot of waiting and then the fall.

I am seriously reconsidering flying First Class ever...since I think its jinxed forever now. So I did learn a few things from this experience....

1. Make friends with your co-passengers since they can help you with the waiting game.
2. Always carry some sort of pain-reliever in case ...
3.Never ask the stewardess in First class...about how much will it cost to watch the movie or if you can use your own headphones since both of them are complimentary in First class.
4. Never try to hurry up because you could end up like me....hee hee..

Oh and thanks to that Angel Guy who helped me get up from my disastrous fall and to my friend's husband and to that sweet natured Gate agent Michael who actually bought some chicken from his own money and gave it to all the passengers that it could reach too. Can you believe that even in this poor economic times where the airlines are trying to cut back on costs by not providing any food for passengers, even though the flights are delayed by 6 hours or more sometimes this gate agent bought food for the passengers out of his own pocket. Even the captain said that he is one of the best gate agents they have. Indeed he is.

The IKEA Home delivery saga

You know I have been such a big fan of Ikea that it used to literally make my day when I would go shopping there. First of all we did not have an Ikea in our town and now that it is there I was super excited about it since I did not have to drive down 200 miles to reach an Ikea store anymore. I had just posted about Ikea earlier and was so proud doing it. Really, I was in this haze over Ikea. Well they disappointed me greatly I must say. I still love the stuff they carry but let me tell you never never order Home Delivery from these guys. So here is my rant story, which is not made up but real. We wanted to buy a new sofa set for our family room and we decided to get it from Ikea. So off we went shopping there and the first time we went we actually ended up buying furniture for our kids ( I am sure it has not happened to any of you :)) anyways after spending a quarter of our sofa budget on the kids stuff we went again and finally found the VRETA sofa in a dark brown color but to our bad luck that was not in stock so my husband dear said we will order it online and get it delivered at our place. So I said why not order in store. That was left at that and when he tried to place an order online for delivery at home they were charging some outrageous amount of money for shipping so we went back to the store again and asked them if it was back in stock. It wasn't. So he placed an order at the store and they said since they did not have it in stock they would only charge 55 bucks for home delivery from their Southern California store. The estimated delivery date was June 13th and the order was placed on June 9th. So we kept waiting almost till the end of June and no sofa. So I called them and they said that it would arrive sometime around July 3rd or 4th since they were trying to get more trucks into their system ( whatever that means), then .........waiting and waiting till the 4th I called them again and the customer service rep said it won't be before the 6th of July now so we had to wait. I called again since the sofa did not show up on the 6th either. So I called again and after transfering my calls they hooked me up with this customer service rep who told me that they should have told me that it could take 3 to 4 weeks for the delivery ( a minor detail which they obviously missed telling us) and they cannot do anything about it. So she said that I would be getting a call from the delivery company that they contract to for furniture deliveries on the 7th and also gave me a special order number that I would need if they did not call. So on the afternoon of 7th somebody called our home and told me that they will deliver between the 2 pm to 6 pm window and they would call ( the drivers) would call 30 minutes ahead to confirm again. Then again, the same night someone else from the delivery company calls to see if the 8 am to 12 pm window will be okay and I told them that I had already been set up for the 2-6 pm window by someone and she had no idea what I was talking about and said they its not showing anything that like that on their "board". I waited for the 8 to 12 window phone call and that never arrived then I receive a call from the driver saying that they were running late and asked me if I was free all day ??? Can you believe that ??? So they said they would be at our place around 3 pm now. So the waiting game continued further...then no delivery until 3:30 pm so I called their delivery company and asked about my order. I was put on hold for sometime and the lady from the company told me that the drivers were stuck in traffic and would be there by 5 pm. So they called finally around 5 pm saying that they were close and they would be at our place soon. So finally we did get our sofa. But I will never order furniture from Ikea using their home delivery service. It was grossly disappointing on Ikea's part. Thanks for reading such a long post about my day yesterday but I think Ikea really does need to work on their delivery services...please anyone reading this who is even remotely connected to Ikea should bring this to their attention.

Orange is beautiful.

This is a necklace and earring set that I had put on ebay to sell it although I thought of keeping it for myself but secretly hoped it wouldn't sell and it did not so here it is.....

A bag, a message

Photo courtesy : Walmart

I like this bag and the message it conveys and hence the post. We can all be a part of this movement one bag at a time, its a start.

I love IKEA

I cannot get over how much I love Ikea and how much kids do too. Today we went furniture shopping at a local furniture store and the prices were so outrageous (high) that we didn't even stay for 10 minutes, I mean even the so-called clearance price was 2000 bucks for a sofa. I am a frugal shopper but we thought since we will keep the furniture for a long time it would be nice to get a quality piece. So even though we did not plan to go to Ikea we ended up there. We ended up buying two nightstands and placed an order online for home delivery for a queen bed, a sofa and a swivel/reclining/rocking chair and it did not cost us a paycheck. I mean I understand that buying locally can be a bit pricey but the store we went to was really not at all our budget. Maybe we made a bad choice. So our furniture is supposed to arrive within the next two weeks or so and I am excited already. We will get rid of our old futon which suffered a lot of abuse from our kids and their friends and I am going to miss it terribly. It made me feel sad for the futon but oh well there is a time for everything to go. Hopefully the colors we picked for our sofa will go with our drapes and the whole room in general since we still have white walls in that room. Besides that we went to eat out tonight and it was fun since we went with a couple of our friends and best of all with my brother who is visiting us from out of town.
Right now I am sitting with my left leg raised on a hopping ball (that my daughter plays with) since my dear brother just dropped his laptop on my left toe and it hurts. Other than that it was really a great day because we have been trying to accomplish this furniture shopping task for quite sometime now. I still would have loved to have more time at Ikea to buy all the accessories to decorate my guest bedroom and other rooms in our house but that is another day of shopping. Something to look forward to I guess.

My recipe is on a food blog I am so excited.

Today I received an email from Pooja saying that she has posted my recipe on her blog for the food blog event that she is hosting (VoW -JFI-BELL PEPPERS). I was excited and had to post about it. To be new as a blogger and to receive such a welcome in the food blogging world is very exciting to me. I actually got this recipe from watching FOOD NETWORK as I normally do everyday. It was my favorite show EVERYDAY ITALIAN. Its my daughter's favorite too. I absolutely adore Giada. She makes recipes seem so effortless and she makes me want to make them. I was watching Friends and Family feast episode and there it was , she was making Rigatoni with Bolognese sauce. I liked it because it had bell peppers, mascarpone cheese and they both happen to be my favorite ingredients. Anything that ends with cheese had to be good .. right !!! So thank you Pooja for the opportunity. Although I did not follow the recipe to the dot and made a few changes to it, it still came out tasting very yummy. Now I want to try Giada's Hazelnut crunch cake with mascarpone and chocolate ( again two of my favorite ingredients) since it has a very semi-homemade touch.