Call it Sandizza or Pizzwich...

Call it what ever you want - "Sandizza" or "Pizzwich"... I am sure you will love the taste of it.

I am switching my job in another 3 days, so I hardly have any work at office these days. I go late of office, browse the net, chat with old friends, take long tea breaks, leave early and spend time my own way. If at any point of time, you are serving notice period in your office, do call me and ask my suggestions on how to spend time effectively in office, while pretending to be busy at work. :)

Well, today I reached home very early and I wanted to try something new.

Lots of rabbit pics and video... no mood for that. Already did some shopping during lunch break today, so no mood for shopping either. Adarsh is not going to return back home before 9.30pm today. He is too busy at the gym preparing for his upcoming marathon! So I thought why not gratify my taste buds. I sometimes roast the bread and have it with coffee. I did the same today , but at the end of it, it tasted fantastic. You can try it yourself. Here is the recipe of the so called "Sandizza". If you are not happy with this name, you can call it "Pizzwich". Well, idhara naamakarana maadidhu naane! My Name, My Recipe, My Taste... Hope u'll love it too :)

Ingredients:

Bread: 2 slices

Veggies (tomato, capsicum, onion, cabbage): chopped into small pieces

Shredded Cheese: as per requirement

Tomato sauce/chilly sauce: for taste

Olives: for taste (optional)

Method:

Roast the bread on either side. Smear it with some ketchup(tomato/chilly sauce) on the surface. Over it, spread all the chopped vegetables. You can add olives if you want the salty taste. Strew the shredded cheese evenly over the veggies. If you do not have shredded cheese, you can as well use the cheese slice & cut into small pieces. Once all these are done, keep the bread in oven for 30 secs until the cheese melts... and then you are done. If you see that its become soft after heating in oven, you can roast it once more in the pan. (make sure you don't roast the toppings. Roast only the other end).

You can try varieties in this. Make a layered sandwich, or roll them up and make bread rolls. Play with your creativity and enjoy the taste!

Cheenikai kadbu - Sweet Idli

For many of you cheenikai kadbu must be a new dish. Well, to simplify, let me call it sweet idli.

We had a holiday at India this October for Deepavali. All of us had loads of fun shopping, bursting crackers, eating sweet dishes and meeting friends/ relatives.
My mom had prepared varieties of sweets and snacks for us that tickled out taste buds. Everyday we would find a rare dish placed on the dining table. Cheenikai kadbu was one among them.

After two weeks of fun and relaxation, we were back to routine. Both of us went to office, spent evenings at gym or at home. Over the weekend, Adarsh went to the market to get veggies and fruits and there he comes with this vegetable - cheeni kai! Well, that's pumpkin for those who don't know.

He wanted me to prepare cheenikai kadbu. He had loved the taste of it at India. So there I go - another experimentation in the kitchen. I called up mom to jot down the recipe. Mom, as usual began explaining her recipe. Yes! she thinks I am still a teenager struggling to cook. So she describes the recipe with precise details. :)

Ingredients:
Cheenikai - Yellow pumpkin(grated): 2 bowls
Jaggery : 1 bowl (grated or cut into small pieces)
Rice Rava(Akki rave): 1.5 bowl
Coconut grating: 1 bowl
Cashew & raisin: 15-20 in number (optional)
cardamom for taste, pinch of salt.

Method:
If you don't get to buy rice rava in the store, then you can grind rice into small pieces (size of medium rava) and use it. Roast the rava in a pan for 2 minutes until it turns slightly brown. Keep it aside for 20-30 mins.

Mix all the above ingredients well with the roasted rava with a spatula or in hand :) . While mixing you need not add water. If at all you want, add very little - a sip or two. Just to spice up the dish and give better taste, I thought of adding some cashews. So, add roasted cashew and raisin to the mix. After mixing it thoroughly, keep it aside for 10-15 minutes.

Then, use the idli plates and fill the plates with the mix. Boil it in the idli cooker(similar to how you make idli). Serve hot with ghee.

This is one of Adarsh's sweets and he loves it for breakfast. Anything that is healthy, anything that has vegetables - he is sure to love it :)

Bintan Getaway

It was our first year anniversary and we wanted to take some time for ourselves and spend in some cool, wonderful place. So we chose Bintan Island. We booked our tickets to Bintan for 2D1N package.

Bintan is located in Indonesia. It is about an hours journey from Singapore's ferry terminal and one of the popular destination for Singaporeans. We headed towards the ferry terminal early in the morning at 6.30 am. The ferry started off at 8am. I was excited about the whole thing because it was the first time I was going in a ferry. We landed Indonesia at 9am. On receiving the on-arrival visa we headed towards Bintan Lagoon Resort which is about 15 minutes from the Ferry Terminal (by bus). The weather there was very cool. With trees on either side and greenery around, for a moment, I felt I was in India. There were wild monkeys playing their pranks on the roads, and then finally we were at the resort entrance.There was a warm welcome at Bintan Lagoon Resort. We were received with a welcome dance by girls in traditional Indonesian outfit. Then we were given a welcome drink.

We checked into our room and it was cosy. The view outside was awesome. As soon as we got settled, we got set to head towards the beach.

Beaches at Bintan are beautiful and clear. It is a nice place for having a quite holiday, just relax and away from the crowd. There was one part of the beach which was a little crowded. But soon we explored a part of it which was lonely, clear and cool. We crossed the small rocks and had some great time at the other end of the beach. Clicking photos and shooting videos is one thing that I am crazy of. Check some of the below pictures that we took at the beach.

It was soon time for lunch and we were back at our room. Since we are vegetarians, we often have very few options when it comes to food. Luckily we found a good restaurant that served veg pizza. Though Indonesia's official currency is Rupiah, you find tags in SGD (in and around the resorts). Everything in-n-around Bintan is quite expensive since its only tourists who come there.

After lunch, we set out towards the resort spa, explored the gym and had a leisure time in the swimming pool. We were back to our room by 10pm. We intended to wake up early next morning so that we could see the sun rise. But as expected, both of us woke up almost 2 hours after sunrise! Our plan for the day was to have a body and foot massage. We got a taxi and headed towards the spa which was 10 mins from the resort. We got a soothing Traditional Indonesian body massage for an hour. It was the first time that both of us got a body massage and I must tell you.... it was simply awesome. The entire body feels light. Your mind calms down and the skin feels soft because of the sandalwood massage oil. After an hours massage, we were hungry. It was almost time for lunch and found out an outlet which served veg food. We enjoyed out veg fried rice and tender coconut and then were on our way back to the resort. On our way back, we took some snaps.

We went back to the resort and then spent some time at the beach. Soon we realised that it was time to pack our bags and leave. We reached the ferry terminal at 3.30pm. As we had some time left, we did some shopping there. Bintan is famous for wood works and wood art. It has great varieties of crafts and stuffs. Do get some stuff for yourself if you happen to get there.

In the ferry, all I did was sleep sleep and only sleep. It was the after-effects of the wonderful massage I guess! Overall, we had a great time at Bintan.

Solution: New Orkut not loading

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Today I happened to see the link "Try the New Orkut" link in my orkut profile. I was eager to find out the new features in it and so clicked on the link. But to my dissapointment, orkut ceased to open up. It simply shows "Loading..." and after a while the message "Bad, bad server! No donut for you" pops up. I spent more than an hour trying to find out a solution for it, but was not successful at it. If you are also facing a similar problem, then here is a very simple solution to it:

Orkut says you can install Google Chrome/Mozilla, but if you are too lazy to download n instal it, then try the below steps:
1. Go to google settings page (https://www.google.com/accounts/ManageAccount?service=hist&hl=en) and login with your orkut/google id.
2. Go to Orkut Settings.
3. At the top, you can find a link "change back to older version". Simply click on it and you are done!

As simple as that... Now you can access your orkut profile and continue orkutting as before. :)

Happy orkutting!

Bunny Rabbits

One of Adarsh's colleagues had a lovely rabbit with them which actually had 4 new born rabbit babies. So Adarsh decided to get two of them home. I was surprised to see the two cute, tiny rabbits at home. One is cream in color, with golden spots all around. The other is grey colored rabbit with white spots round the neck.

Adarsh also got along a large cage for it, some rabbit food, hay and bedding for them.
I felt very bad to see the two tiny beings caged and locked up. So I took them to the room, and slowly unlocked the door. The rabbits were very mild and scared to come out. So, I carried them and left them on the floor. They probably lost balance on the mosaic floor. I let them free for a while and then fed them with cabbage and carrots. Then we decorated its cage with bedding, a cloth, a mug filled with rabbit food, and some cabbage.

We soon started hunting for cute names for my cute bunny rabbits. Inu-Tinu, Chintu-Pintu, Sonu-Monu, Chooti-Cutie, Ini-Wini and many more such u's and i's. I din't like a few, few others dint really appeal Adarsh. After lots of other suggestions, we finally decided to go with Chintu-Pintu.

Being seperated from their mom, initial few days had been a tough time for them I guess. Slowly they got friendly and started their pranks. In the morning, we give them some veggies to eat. After coming back from office, in the evening we let them free in the house. They have become so naughty now, that they bite the telephone wires, eat news paper, hide underneath the cot, behind the fridge and play all their pranks on us. They very well know when its time to put them back to cage, so they try to hide away from us. Oh man! its such a tough job to put them back in cage... I tell you! And once they are cooped back, they always try to bite the metallic rods of the cage trying to free themselves. The best part in them it that they dont make the floor dirty. They very well know where and when to pee. Haha...

One fine day, I decided to spent the entire day with them. I sms'ed my boss telling that I was feeling unwell and applied for MC - Medical leave! ;)
Then I got busy feeding my pet. The whole evening, I simply spent clicking pictures and shooting videos. I then uploaded them in the internet, also sent it to all my friends. Funny uh! :) Check out the below video of Chintu-Pintu.

The two bambinos are so lovely and playful that we now never realize how the day begins and how it ends. Its really a mirthful experience with these veggie freaks!