Samosas - do it yourself

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 ! 

The body hackers

It has been hard to do yoga by myself day after day.. but I haven't missed a day this year. Have managed to do a full class with audio recordings from my teachers every day, even if it was the last thing I had to do before going to bed. 

We also have a once a week Zoom live class where our world champion teacher watches us patiently as little thumbnails and still manages to correct us as we are doing the asanas in synchronization with her instructions. 

Today during the live class she said "dont give up" exactly a few milliseconds before I had officially given up going from the left side to right side of a pose. 

The best part is also being able to share things on the group pages and have teachers give me corrections or suggestions on how to improve or go past a set back of sorts. It is kind of like going to a doctor. The better you are able to tell them what is going on in the post, the better the help. You post a photo or video, that is like giving your doctor an x-ray or ultrasound video.. better the help.

For the last few days, I have been trying to improve my practice by taking one pose where we are lying down on the floor and try hold it for 2-3 minutes after finishing the regular class. The reason for this was :

1. doing stuff at home is not same as doing stuff in a hot room at 110 F and 40% humidity. So we cannot push ourselves to the same limits. 

2. at the end of giving it everything at room temp, you are still a lot more flexible at end of class than beginning of class, so it makes sense to stretch at least one pose

3. normally we hold poses for 20 seconds. holding for 2-3 minutes might help me go past limits, relax certain parts better and hold other parts of the body consistently.

What surprised me was that my breathing faltered after 2 minutes on many such attempts even on simple poses. The main reason was my attempt to keep the pose "active" and pulling too much which automatically puts the focus from the breath to the constraint and the whole thing fell apart. 

When I explained this, my teachers gave me very precise instructions on going step by step to handle this. 

Your body is a machine and even though you have had it all your life, it doesn't mean you can put it in certain poses, unless you have a cheat sheet.. there is a step by step method to this madness which will help you get there.. 

Yoga teachers are hackers.. they are body hackers.. they literally have a cheat sheet for how to make your body do things you thought it could never do! 

here are some examples.

disclaimer: these were taken after dinner for show and tell purposes.. based on photographer availability..

I always used to imagine pushing the top surface out and up and towards the mirror in front of me.. that kind of backfires because at the neck area you are conflicted.. the neck has to drop. The idea is actually to push from the back to the front.. imagine the green surface moving up and out and problem solved.. neck still drops. it is easier to imagine things that way. Again what I say may not make sense to you.. as long as one teacher explained it in a way that made sense to me, all is well. 

There is no "code" that can be just downloaded into your head to make you do what the teacher wants and do it right. 

So far my teachers have been very patient with me.. On one of the pre-recorded dialogues my teacher says "it took me 5 years to do what it says in the instruction. It takes however long it takes.. but patience is the key"..

I am testing the patience of my teachers and they are absolutely sweet about handling all the questions. 

Now that I have an extra 30 minutes that is not spent driving to and fro to yoga class, putting that time also towards the yoga. It will hopefully come in handy when the lockdown is lifted and we are able to practice with heat again.

Here's to teachers!

Tamil New year - a delayed photo op

My mom got me a few shirts and pants to wear for this years occasions on my last India trip in December. This year we were not exactly in celebratory mood for Tamil New Year two weeks ago. 

We had just finished 30 days under lockdown and were at the stage where everyone was ready to kill each other within the house. The good news is we are all doing okay and are all healthy. 

I have been pushing the family to come for a photoshoot to get a family picture and tonight they obliged.. it was not possible to make everyone dress up as some folks expect me to be happy for them even showing up for the picture. 

We did have some good eats on April 14th to celebrate but we were in stay-at-home clothing.

Here is last years photo..

and this years photo..

and another photo to remember this time and this year..

Next year Jr. will be in college and given Tamil New Year falls on April 14th, chances are she will not be visiting.. it might be a good  8 years before we see the family in one place for this. . . which is why I was pushing for these pictures in the first place!

This year started in quarantine and has set the bar very low for any year in our lifetime. We sincerely hope that things will get better and we get back to at least 50% of our routines.

Given my grumpiness and the actual day being spent in back to back zoom meetings and calls...

I wish you all a better year! 

Hope by next April we are all back to normal! 

Luke warm Solo Yoga where a group class seems so far far away

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. 

Yoga is a blessing, as are my fellow yogis!

Happy Pongal 2019

We celebrated Pongal on a weekday this year.. so it was the San and myself team effort at 5AM to make pongal and vadai and do a quick pooja before taking off to work. The kids were not even up in time to participate.

Had to make a rush for the sugarcane in the local Indian store.. stiff competition from customers for the 10 or so canes that were there!

Managed to see the sun at work during a lunch walk on Pongal, which in itself is becoming a hit or miss the last few years. 

My office mates know from the "chandhana pottu" on my forehead that there must have been some function/ festival going on. When I describe Pongal to them they go "oh, so it is your version of thanksgiving!" 

There was no chance to recreate our Pongal family picture during the week. It was too cold outside and given our backyard has been remodelled, there was no chance to get that same shot anyways.. so the closest I got to a collage was this..

The kids can no longer stand in front of us!  It was also not easy to be in a dhoti today, given the cold weather.

In four years, Jr. will be a senior in college and the little one a freshman.  It is my sincere wish that they show up for Pongal to take one more picture. Daddy will be waiting with pongal in one hand and camera in the other..

one can always hope.. put senti on the blog.. etc. but these kids have a mind of their own.

To everyone who celebrates Pongal, may this year be a good one for you!