#534 Writing ; my inner calling

 Writing; my inner calling

Design Credit: Canva
 This post is part of the ‘The Write Path’ blog hop hosted by Swarnali Nath.

After completing #BlogchatterFoodFest 2024, I was wondering what to write. Even though a lot of stuffs keep floating out of my mind, guiding my fingers to touch the keys of the keyboard, to transport thoughts from my mind to the white screen of my laptop, I face writer’s block occasionally when the word file isn’t opened in my laptop. Luckily, I got an invitation from my blogger friend Swarnali to participate in The Write Path Blog Hop, to reflect on my writing journey.

I have been writing on this platform for the last 11 years but have been writing since standard 5 when I composed my first poem. The moment I thought about reflecting on my writing journey, I recalled having written something on this journey through the article -  “Why I write?” on the first anniversary of my blog. I’ve written a lot after that, not just on my blog but on various other platforms like Quora, Mirakee, YourQuote, Story Mirror, Goodreads, and many other anthologies. A lot of things have happened in the last 11 years, good and bad, but one thing that stayed constant to witness all those changes in this blog. It's like a public version of my diary.

I’ve always found writing therapeutic. Writing gives me a sense of being heard or listened to.  If you want to befriend your conscience or inner self, you just must write your heart out. For someone reticent like me, this skill is a lifesaver. It has helped me to establish a connection to empathize with my feelings or to cheer me up during bad times. I needed no one but only a piece of paper to calm the chaos within me. Life gave me many opportunities to live and work abroad after my marriage. Living in a foreign society seemed unsocial or depressing to others, appeared intellectual bliss for me as I let myself immersed in various writing assignments. I have spent months of darkness, gloomy weather, extreme winter, challenging phases of the job hunt, and associated rejections in the solace of reflection and gratitude that writing has introduced me to. Instead of looking for companionship outside, I relied on my true calling and embraced it. This realization of writing as my true friend, came to me during my college days and writing has been doing its duty as a close friend ever since then.

Writing has proved a great way to declutter my mind, especially when many thoughts occupy my mind. Just like how you clean your room to remove unnecessary stuff, our minds need to be cleaned occasionally. Writing comes to my rescue at that point. I just leave my thoughts on a piece of paper which forms a part of my daily journal, without being judged. Yes, it's a privilege that writing has provided me. It has also assisted me to select the right choice out of myriads of options.

A lot of technical advancements have happened after the advent of AI and Machine Learning. A lot of writing tools have come up that assist writers with grammar, structure, tone, or ideas of writing. I haven’t used these tools much because I always let my inner voice guide me to write. Every other element like grammar, spelling, structure, etc. doesn’t appear as a hurdle to me in my writing process but these are automatically taken care of. I neither put a lot of energy nor planned to produce a write-up. I trust my instincts and the outcome of the process.

I neither have a degree in literature nor ever pursued literature intensely as I am from an Engineering background but an urge to express myself through words ticked every checkpoint for letting my thoughts reach my readers. The purer the intentions, the greater will be the reach. Following your passion should not require any certification as validation. I feel that writing has been gifted to me by the almighty and I want to share its bliss with my readers. I get the rewards of my writing when my readers express that they can relate to it.

Participants of #thewritepathbloghop

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Swati Sarangi

25.06.2024

#thewritepathbloghop

#533 A healthy salad bowl for lunch

 A healthy salad bowl for lunch

Design : Canva

All of us know that salads are healthy food but how many of us eat salad as our favorite meal? Frankly speaking, I was never a fan of salad until I discovered this recipe on the internet. It’s easy to prepare, just takes 15 minutes or so. It’s delicious, healthy, and at the same time, fulfilling. You won’t realize how the entire bowl will get emptied in few minutes. Let me share my version of this recipe with you.

10% fat Greek Yoghurt

Ever since I moved to Netherlands, I’ve been packing this dish as lunch for my husband and he so absolutely enjoys it. The main ingredient of this dish is Yoghurt and I get the best Yoghurt here. I have chosen 10% fat Yoghurt because of its creamy consistency but you can consider using any curd of your choice.

Protein-rich sources used in this dish 

            Start with preparing the Yoghurt base. For that , put salt, brown sugar, roasted cumin powder, and paprika/red chilli powder in the curd and mix it well. Then start adding chopped veggies of your choice. I’ve added cucumber, carrots, bell papers, onions, diced boiled potatoes, and stir-fried veggies like zucchini, beans and flat beans. I’ve stir-fried certain veggies because they don’t taste great when eaten raw. I have added overnight-soaked and boiled split green peas and kidney beans for protein. You can take any protein-rich ingredient like boiled soya chunks, paneer, tofu, or any lentil like Chickpea (chhole/Rajma) of your choice. To add crunch to this dish, you can add peanuts and dry fruits like cashews, almonds, raisins, etc. Mix all the ingredients well and top it up with chopped coriander leaves.

            We should experiment with our food habits to make it healthier. Incorporating small changes, choosing healthier alternatives, and eating mindfully with a sense of gratitude are some of the habits that can reward us with a lot of health benefits in the long run. I conclude this post with a Mantra which I remember having been taught during my school days, which we chanted before our lunch -  Oṁ Saha nāvavatu saha nau bhunaktu Saha vīryam karavāvahai Tejasvi nāvadhītamastu Mā vidviṣāvahai Oṁ Shāntiḥ, Shāntiḥ, Shāntiḥ .

Translation:

Om, May we all be protected

 May we all be nourished

May we work together with great energy

May our intellect be sharpened (may our study be effective)

Let there be no Animosity amongst us

Om, peace (in me), peace (in nature), peace (in divine forces)

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Swati Sarangi

18.06.2024

 P.S: I’m participating in #BlogchatterFoodFest2024.

#BlogchatterFoodFest

 

#532 My go-to meal

 My go-to meal

Design Credit: Canva

On days when I am sick or too lazy to cook anything, my go-to meal is a bowl of steamy veggie-loaded Macroni. To make this dish healthy and fulfilling, I add a lot of seasonal veggies and prefer the Macroni(no-maida) to be made up of wheat flour wheat or corn flour. Even though no-all-purpose flour Macroni looks not-so-appealing as compared to the all-purpose flour Macroni but I have omitted all-purpose flour(Maida) from my plate a long ago.

Ingredients:

• ·      Sliced onions
• ·      Garlic
• ·      Bell papers
• ·      Green chillies
• ·      Mushrooms
• ·      Beans
• ·      Flat beans
• ·      Zuchhini
• ·      Diced Carrots
• ·      Cabbage
• ·      Brocolli
• ·      Salt
• ·      Black Pepper
• ·      Chicken Masala(optional)
• ·      Sauces of your choice
• ·      Coriander leaves to garnish

Procedure:

• ·      Take some water in a pan and add some salt and a few drops of oil to it. Drops of oil will prevent the Macroni from sticking to each other.
• ·      Once the water starts to boil, put the Macroni into it.
• ·      In the meantime, you can start chopping vegetables sidewise. Once the Macroni is 70%-80% cooked, strain them and put them under cold water. Then put them aside.
• ·      In the same pan, add some oil/butter and chopped garlic, and stir them till they become a little brown.
• ·      Then on high flame, start adding all veggies one by one and stir them for 3-4 minutes. High flame maintains the crunch of these veggies without making them turn soft or mushy.
• ·      Add the salt, spices, and sauces of your choice. I added black pepper, chicken masala, and soya sauce. Then mix all and stir for 3-4 minutes.
• ·      At the end, serve it hot with chopped coriander leaves.

If you’re an eggetarian, you can add eggs to it too. It tastes good with that too. Alternatively, soya chunks can be a substitute for eggs for vegetarians. This might look like a lot of tasks for some but trust me, the taste will take away all the pain of cooking.

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Swati Sarangi

18.06.2024

 P.S: I’m participating in #BlogchatterFoodFest2024.

#BlogchatterFoodFest

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#531 Savouring Dutch Delights

 Savouring  Dutch Delights

Design : Canva

Happy Raja to those who are celebrating it! It is the last day of this 3-day-long festival.  With the weekend coming to an end, this festival also ends today. I hope the Raja Festival's coincidence with weekends this year must have made manifold your feeling of joy.

I planned to visit Amsterdam on 15.06 with my husband from Delft, where we live now. It has just been 2 weeks since we moved to Delft from Espoo, and we got busy getting some official work done, which is still in progress. We decided to take little break from all of these and visit a place somewhat closer to Delft. So, I booked Flixbus to Amsterdam for 15.06 which left from the Delft Station at 6:30 am. With the bus running at a speed of 100kmph, we reached Amsterdam in 1 hour. During our journey, we enjoyed some snacks that I bought a day before from the supermarket like Cheese Croissants, Coconut Rings, Chocolate Roll, Salted Peanuts, Indonesian Rice chips and Duo Cakes. Flix bus dropped us at Amsterdam Sloterdijk, which was not the destination that we wanted to get down at. So, we took metro from there to the Amsterdam Center which dropped us at our destination in 3-4 minutes.

         The sky was grey, and the weather was windy and rainy. We took a free boat tour from Amsterdam Central Station to Buiksloterweg. It was around 9 am and was early for any museum to get opened. A nearby Albert Heijn Store, a supermarket, saved us from, both hunger and windy weather. We immediately marched to the bakery section and grabbed some spinach and eggplant stuffed spring rolls and chocolate rolls. We had so much to explore within a limited time, so we quickly headed towards Buiksloterweg station to return to Amsterdam Central Station with the same free cruise tour. On that 15-minute ride, we enjoyed the spring rolls and I liked the taste of spinach-stuffed ones over eggplant-stuffed ones.

We took the metro to the next station to Ronkin. The weather was still windy and grey. We walked around a little bit in the Amsterdam Central area, halting at the various stores like Souvenir stores, garment stores, etc, while waiting for the weather to improve. There was a canal in that region and the view around that was simply breathtaking when the sun started to shine. We took a one-hour Canal Tour which was a guided one. The recording was played in three languages; Dutch, German, and English. The boat provided the much-needed warmth from the cold winds and comforted me to the extent that I reminiscence this tour even today. We found Twin sister buildings, twin brothers buildings, Mayor’s buildings, father & son buildings, dancing buildings, floating Restaurant of Hong Kong, boat houses, a library, and swings from the topmost buildings – all these at the right or left banks of the canal.

After our canal tour, we found McDee to satisfy our hungry stomachs. On the way out of that McDee, we found Flower’s Market and cheese stores. We visited some of those and I purchased souvenir magnets. It was around 2pm by then and we had to return to the stop of Flixbus at Amsterdam Sloterdijk by 3PM. We boarded the bus on time and traveled from Amsterdam Sloterdijk to Hague. Our journey hadn’t been over yet. From Hague to Delft, we traveled by sprinter and then from Delft Station to our apartment by cycle. That was a long day and we really enjoyed it.

There’s a lot to explore in this new country and city; be it places or local cuisines. We couldn’t try the famous waffles which we keep on our wish list for the next time.

 

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Swati Sarangi

16.06.2024

P.S: I’m participating in #BlogchatterFoodFest2024.

#BlogchatterFoodFest

#530 Our beloved "Pakhala" to beat the summer

 Our beloved "Pakhala" to beat the summer

Image Source : Google Image

As an Odia, I have always appreciated the simplicity of a summer cuisine called Pakhala. It’s also known as watered rice. It’s very easy to prepare because it requires minimum time. It’s the soul food that instantly refreshes me by taking away all my exhaustion. It is said to work against dehydration, hence protecting us from the side effects of the scorching heat of summer.

My sweet recollection of enjoying this simple cuisine is linked to the summer(both literally and metaphorically) of my childhood days when we would return from school around 2pm. After freshening up a bit, our hunger would be aggravated by seeing a table full of Pakhala bowls with a lot of side dishes like Brinjal fry, Badi Chura(Crushed Badi), Saaga Bhaja, Alu Chakata(Mashed Potato), sliced onions & cucumber, fish fry, santula ( Boiled veggies) etc. Magic of my mother’s culinary skill would instantly appease our hungry stomachs and touch our souls to an inexplicable level.

If you’re wondering how to prepare this, let me spill the beans. You have to ferment the cooked rice with plain water overnight, there’s no compulsion to do so but it tastes better this way. Alternatively, you can add plain water to the cooked rice and keep it aside for some hours to let rice get more softened and assimilated in the water. Add some spoons of curd to this. To enhance its taste, it needs to be tempered with curry leaves, mustard seed, dried red chillies, chopped garlic and coriander to garnish. As accompaniments, you can take mashed potatoes with chopped onion and mustard oil, fried/boiled/deep fried veggies of your choice. If you’re a non-vegetarian, you can enjoy this with fried fish. Nothing can beat this combination, trust me!

This skill to prepare this simple dish travelled with me across borders. Whenever I wanted to eat something light, simple but wholesome which could be prepared instantly, nothing would come across my mind as a saviour other than Pakhala. It is something that my husband also enjoys having. The water of the Pakhala, which is caled Torani, that is either mixed with curd or lemon juice is drunk to digest the food.

I have had many memories with Pakhala, enjoyed experimenting with different side dishes in recent years and many moments to be lived which will have this dish in it , these moments turning to memories. I can never recreate the sense of satisfaction that came after eating a bowl of Pakhala with various side dishes prepared by my mother. Every time, I eat Pakhala, I am instantly reminded of those memories while I try to soak myself in the heavenly drape of the moment.

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Swati Sarangi

13.06.2024

P.S: I’m participating in #BlogchatterFoodFest2024.

#BlogchatterFoodFest

#529 What was on my plate for lunch?

 What was on my plate for lunch?

Picture Credit : My mobile
Design Credit : Canva

I like cooking which acts as a therapy or a stress buster. It’s a survival skill especially when you live abroad. You can save a lot of time and money when you can cook decently. Cooking involves a lot of processes including cleaning and cutting vegetables, following a recipe, presenting the dishes and cleaning the dishes and kitchen. No matter how clumsy the entire process may appear, the result is worth satisfying our taste buds.

I have been trying to follow a healthy diet and making it rich with all kinds of available veggies. The picture is the plate of my lunch which consisted of plain rice, cucumber slices as salad, Dalma(a curry from Odia cuisine) containing flat beans, potato,brinjal and zucchini, fried egg curry and fruit cream as dessert.

For those of you who don’t know what Dalma is, here’s a short description. Dalma is a very sought-after curry in Odia cuisine which consists of seasonal vegetables like pumpkin, potato, brinjal, tomato, drum sticks etc. in a lentil base like Arhar/Moong Dal. It’s very simple to cook, so is prepared on a daily basis. First, you’ve to add some turmeric and salt to the boiling water in either a pot or pressure cooker, then add the washed daal (arhar/moong/masoor or mix of all) to it. After that add all the vegetables of your choice which are cut into big cubes and pressure cook them for about one whistle time. At the end, add a tempering of panch phoran and dried red chillies and serve it hot with rice or roti.

Egg curry is another simple dish that is among my favorites. Boil some eggs in salty water. Then remove its shells, prick them with the help of fork and marinate them with salt, turmeric, and red chilli powder. Then fry them in hot oil along with some diced potatoes. In a pan, put some cumin seeds, once they become aromatic, add sliced onion and ginger garlic paste. Fry them until they become golden brown, then add chopped tomatoes to them. Now, is the time to add basic powder Masalas like cumin powder, coriander powder, red chilli powder, and chicken masala along with salt as per the taste. Once tomatoes become mushy and start losing oil, add some hot water and let it boil for 2-3 minutes. Now add fried potatoes to it and let it get softened by absorbing the curry, then add fried eggs to it. Let the curry simmer for 2-3 minutes so that all the flavors get absorbed in potatoes and eggs. At the end, garnish it with coriander leaves.

I gave a twist to the traditional fruit cream by replacing milk with curd. I added brown sugar to the curd containing 10% fat to make it healthier. This fat content gave it a creamy texture. I added some pomegranate for the crunch. It was so delicious as a dessert and concluded my simple lunch. I got so satisfied with the efforts that I put in preparing this lunch.

 Little improvisations in our food habits can create a big difference. So, we should invest in mindful eating.

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Swati Sarangi

12.06.2024

P.S: I’m participating in #BlogchatterFoodFest2024.

#BlogchatterFoodFest